
Class 3)Q 3fe 
Book .L'3 



FROM THE CRUSADES TO THE 
FRENCH REVOLUTION 



THE 



LA TREMOILLE FAMILY 



BY 



'^^no^. WINIFRED (STEPHENS ) Vt^?^^^ 



ILLUSIRATED 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1914 



^ 



(y^^ 

^ •> 



V 






The Author regrets the oversight by which there was 
omitted from the preface the expression of her gratitude 
to the late M. Honors Champion and M. Edouard 
Champion for many kind services rendered to her during 
the progress of this book, and for their permission to 
reproduce certain iUustrations in volumes published by 
them. 



<0 

cr 



PREFACE 

Without exaggeration it may be said that in the 
history of France few families, if any, have played 
a more persistently prominent part than the house of 
La Tremoille.-^ For five centuries, from the Crusades to 
the Revolution, the La Tremoille stock has never failed 
to produce men of mark, and women too. Whether 
for good or for evil La Tremoilles have stamped their 
personalities on those great movements which have 
built up modern France : on the Crusades, on the 
Hundred Years War, on the ItaHan campaigns, on the 
religious strife which followed the Reformation, on the 
Fronde, and, during the Revolution, on the death struggle 
of that ancien regime with which they had been so 
intimately associated. 

Outside France, too, in the affairs of England and of 
Denmark, and in such great European movements as the 
struggle for independence of the United Provinces and 
the establishment of the Bourbons on the throne of Spain, 
we shaR find La Tremoilles active. We shall also find 
them figuring in association with such famous persons as 
Joan of Arc, Prince Rupert, Oliver Cromwell, Madame de 
Sevigne, Prince Charles Edward, and Marie Antoinette. 

To tell adequately the story of this illustrious house it 
would be necessary, therefore, to write not only the 
history of France through five centuries, but more than 

1 This name, which in Latin was Tremulia, in French is to be found 
spelt in four different ways : Trimoille, Tremoille, Trimouille and 
Tremoille. The last is the form here adopted. 



vi PREFACE 

one chapter in the history of other states. Such an 
undertaking the Hmits of the present volume forbid. 
My readers must brook abridgment. 

The persistent dominance of the La Tremoille Une the 
modern eugenist will ascribe to the care of its members 
always to choose their consorts from th.e most vigorous 
families of the day — Montmorency, Nassau, Arragon, 
Stanley, Conde, Hesse Cassel, Sobieski — to mention only 
a few of the influential houses to which they were alhed. 
But the La Tremoilles have not always been equally 
powerful. Their wealth and influence attained its zenith 
towards the end of the sixteenth century, during the life- 
time of Claude, the second Duke. Then with their 1,700 
vassals, a larger number than were included in any other 
French fief, the heads of this house were nothing more or 
less than kinglets of western France. At Laval and at 
Thouars, their Breton and Poitevin capitals, they kept 
truly royal state. On the banks of the little river Thouet 
they raised a princely pile -^ which cast into insignificance 
such royal residences as Marly and Chenonceaux. Had 
any La Tremoille a grievance against the Crown, which not 
infrequently happened, in a very short time he could equip 
and put into the field an army of several hundred men. 

But, towards the middle of the following century, the 
tide of their success changed and their fortunes began to 
ebb. In the civil war of the Fronde, that last great struggle 
of the French nobility against the centralised government 
of Richeheu and Mazarin, a government intended to thwart 
the aspirations of the nobles and to degrade kinglets into 
courtiers. La Tremoille wealth, freely expended on the side 
of the nobility, dwindled, estates grew encumbered and 
their owners burdened with debt. 

1 still standing to-day and used as a prison. See illustration. 



PREFACE vii 

Henceforth the Dukes of La Tremoille found it 
impossible to keep up the double state of a hotel in Paris 
and a court in the west. They were now compelled to 
choose between the prestige of a great feudal lord in the 
provinces and the glamour of a grandee at court ; they 
elected the latter, and they began to reside more and 
more at Paris. Poitevins and Bretons came to know 
them no more. Thus, on the La Tremoille estates, as 
throughout the rest of France, there grew up that 
disastrous system of absenteeism, which caused the feudal 
yoke so to chafe the necks of its wearers that ultimately, 
with one great throb of agony, they cast it off. 

As long as the Dukes of La Tremoille lived amongst 
their vassals, taking a personal interest in their concerns, 
feudal burdens, though heavy, were bearable. At the 
bidding of the Duke and Duchess living in their midst 
the people of Thouars had been content to slave, to give 
their labour, as well as their money, for the building of 
that huge castle which still dominates their town. But 
when their princes left them to return only at rare 
intervals, and then without ceremony or even incognito, 
when they ceased to hold in those lordly halls the annual 
gatherings of their numerous vassals, when the courts of 
Thouars ceased to resound beneath the armed feet of 
goodly companies assembling to be led to battle by their 
chief, when corvees had to be rendered and feudal dues paid 
to an absent and unknown lord, then the gorges of sturdy 
Bretons and Poitevins rose against the injustice of the 
ancien regime ; Thouars became one of the first pro- 
vincial cities to set up a Jacobite club, and soon the broad 
lands of the La Tremoilles were seized by the Government 
of the Revolution. 

But it is important to remark that when the state took 



viii PREFACE 

possession of the La Tremoille property, and the Jacobins 
of Thouars could range at will through the lofty halL of 
the castle on the Thouet, it was only on the property of 
the Duke of that day that they wreaked their vengeance. 
The portraits of his ancestors, with one exception,^ they 
venerated and even carried off to their own homes in 
order to save them from desecration by strangers. 

While Sans-Culottes were profaning the homes of his 
ancestors, the Due de La Tremoille, Charles Bretagne, 
was reduced to wandering over the face of Europe serving 
in foreign armies against his republican countrymen. 
His eldest brother, leading the forlorn hope of the ancien 
regime in La Vendee, was taken, and by a Republican 
court martial condemned to die beneath the walls of his 
own castle of Laval. A few months later another brother 
was guillotined at Paris. 

After the Revolution turmoil had subsided, the late 
Duke, Louis Charles de La Tremoille, devoted many years 
to making known the history of his illustrious family. 
And it is chiefly from the La Tremoille archives as pub- 
hshed by Duke Louis that the story told in this book has 
been derived. 

The history of these archives is in itself a romance. 
When in the seventeenth century Marie de la Tour 
d' Auvergne and her husband, Duke Henry de La Tremoille, 
built their great chateau on the Thouet, they constructed 
in one of its towers a strong room with a heavy iron door, 
and here they placed the family records which had 
accumulated through the ages. In the previous genera- 
tion at Duke Claude's request these documents had been 
classified and arranged by two eminent archivists of the 
day, the brothers Scevole and Louis de Sainte-Marthe. 

1 That of Marie de la Tour d' Auvergne. See post, 200. 



PREFACE ix 

These historians composed a summary of their researches, 
which, after their death, was pubHshed by their son and 
nephew, Pierre Scevole de Sainte-Marthe. This,-^ the 
earhest known history of the La Tremoilles, appeared in 
1668. 

For a century and more the La Tremoille archives 
rested in peace in the muniment room of Thouars. Then 
the Revolution broke out and the Poitevin town became 
one of the centres of the war waged in the west by the 
courageous supporters of monarchy. More than once the 
chateau had to stand a siege, and more than once it 
narrowly escaped being burnt to the ground. But 
through all these dangers, though riddled with bullets, the 
iron door kept out the besiegers and the archives remained 
intact. 

The time came, however, when the La Tremoilles, 
having emigrated, their chateau, as we have said, was 
seized by the Revolution Government. Then the muni- 
ment room became public property. Then the battered 
iron door was left to swing on its hinges, the chests were 
rifled and their contents exposed to the ravages of auto- 
graph hunters, of rats and of damp, while the finest pieces 
of parchment the good wives of Thouars eagerly appro- 
priated to serve as covers for their jam pots. So, when 
Revolution wrath had subsided and Duke Charles asked 
Napoleon's Government to restore his family records, the 
steward sent down to Thouars to examine them, found 
the contents of two chests, such as remained of them, 
strewn like so many scraps of waste paper on the floor of 
the muniment room. But the papers in the four remain- 
ing chests appear to have been untouched, and they con- 
tained enough material for the composition of a connected 

1 " Histoire Gen6alogique de la Maison de Tr6moille." 



X PREFACE 

family history. Some twenty years later, when in 1830 
Duke Charles took for his third wife the Comtesse de 
Serrant, these documents, securely packed in eighty cases, 
were removed to the chateau of Serrant, where most of 
them remain to this day. 

Nevertheless, the true value of these records was not 
rightly estimated until the middle of the last century, 
when M. Paul Marchegay, archivist, of Maine-et-Loire, in 
search of letters from Madame de Sevigne to a La Tre- 
moille princess,-^ obtained permission to examine them. 
Of the letters he sought not one did M. Marchegay dis- 
cover,^ but he found others equally interesting, written by 
Louise de Coligny, sister of the famous Admiral and third 
wife of William the Silent, to her step-daughter, Charlotte 
Brabantine, who had married Duke Claude de La Tre- 
moille. These, with other valuable letters of the same 
period, M. Marchegay published in three volumes.^ 

Following in M. Marchegay's footsteps and with his 
assistance Duke Louis de La Tremoille undertook for 
publication a systematic arrangement of the family 
archives. In 1877, there appeared for private circulation 
a fine folio, the " Chartier de Thenars, " a copy of which the 
Duke presented to the British Museum. Then between 
1890 and 1896 he gave to the public five handsome volumes 
entitled " Les La Tremoille pendant cinq siecles." 

From these and other minor publications it will be seen 



1 See post, 203 et seq. 

2 They were found elsewhere and inserted by M. Monmerque in his 
edition of Madame de Sevigne's letters. 

2 " Lettres de Louise de Coligny . . . a . . . Charlotte Brabantine 
de Nassau, Duchesse de La Tremoille," 1872 ; " Lettres d'Elisabeth de 
Nassau, Duchesse de Bouillon, a sa sceur Charlotte Brabantine de 
Nassau, Duchesse de La Tremoille," 1875 ; " Correspondance de Louise 
de Coligny recueillie par P. Marchegay," 1887. See also by the same 
author, " Recherches historiques sur le departement de La Vendee," 
1859, and " Cartulaires du Bas-Poitou," 1877. 



PREFACE xi 

that, despite many serious losses, there remained of the 
La Tremoille documents an invaluable collection including 
letters from kings and princes, correspondence between 
other great historical personages and, by no means the 
least interesting to English readers, the letters of that 
famous Charlotte de La Tremoille, Countess of Derby, 
that Lady of Lathom whom Sir Walter Scott has so 
admirably depicted in " Peveril of the Peak." 

For four centuries at least, from Froissart downwards, 
French chronicles, memoirs and histories abound in 
references to the members of this house. 

The earliest biography of a La Tremoille was written 
in the sixteenth century by Jean Bouchet, a Poitiers 
lawyer, and a retainer of the great Count Louis de La 
Tremoille.-^ In terms of extravagant adulation Bouchet 
tells the story of his master's adventurous career and of 
the Italian wars in which he commanded the armies of 
three successive French Kings. 

The most recent biography of a La Tremoille is a 
volume by Edouard Barthelemy, telling the tragic story 
of Charlotte de La Tremoille, Princesse de Conde, who was 
accused of poisoning her huiband. Of that other and 
later Charlotte, the Lady of Lathom, there are two 
excellent biographies, one in English by Guizot's daughter, 
Madame de Witt, and another more recent, in French, by 
Leon Marlet.^ No less than four members of the family 
have written their own memoirs. The letters of several 
others have been published. For example, the corre- 
spondence of his illustrious kinswoman, the Princesse des 
Ursins, on the question of the Spanish succession, the Due 

1 This life is included in Michaud and Poujoulat's collection of French 
memoirs. Series I., Vol. IV. 

2 A third, by Miss Rowsell, contains nothing which is not to be found 
in Madame de Witt's book save several inaccuracies. 



xii PREFACE 

de La Tremoille has published in no less than six magnifi- 
cent quarto volumes. All these sources I have con- 
scientiously consulted, and detailed references to them 
will be found in the following pages. 

It now only remains for me to express my thanks to 
those who by their kindness have facilitated the illustra- 
tion of this book : to Madame la Duchesse Douairiere de 
La Tremoille for her gracious permission to reproduce 
pictures and portraits contained in the publications of 
the late Due de La Tremoille ; to Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, 
herself a descendant of a Princesse de La Tremtoille, for 
generously placing her portrait album at my disposal ; 
to Count Bentinck and Mr. Aldenburg Bentinck for their 
permission to reproduce portraits in their possession ; to 
Miss Evelyn Glover, for an excellent photograph of the 
Castle at Vitre; and to Miss Dorothy McDougall for 
supplying me with an interesting collection of pictures of 
Poitou. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAP. FAGB 

Preface . v 

I. La Tremoilles in the Crusades and the English 

Wars. 1040 — 1397 ..... i 

II. Georges DE La Tremoille. 1382 (?) — 1446. . x6 

III. Two Loyal Servants of King Louis XI. . 42 

IV. La Tremoilles in the Italian Wars . . 51 
V. La Tremoilles in the Wars of Religion . 92 

VI. The Lady of Lathom. 1559 — 1664 . . . 122 

VII. Henry Charles de La Tr:^moille, a Hero of 

the Fronde. 1620— 1672 .... 173 

VIII. La Bonne Tarente and her Daughter, as they 

APPEAR IN the Letters of Mme. de Sevigne . 203 

IX. "A Lieutenant of Mme. de Maintenon," La 

Princesse des Ursins. 1642 (?)— 1722 . . 213 

X. The Princesse de Talmond, Prince Charlie's 



Egeria, and other La Tremoilles of the 
Eighteenth Century ..... 



257 



XI. The Family During the Revolution. 1764 — 1839 273 
Index 317 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



TO FACE 
PAGE 



Jean Bretagne, Due de La Tremoille, Marie de Salm, 

DUCHESSE DE La Tr^ MOILLE, AND THEIR SoNS 

Frontispiece 
The Chateau of Thouars in its present Condition . viii 
The medieval L'Ile Bouchart and its Chateau . . 42 • 

All that to-day remains of the Ile Bouchart 

Chateau ........ 44 

Louis XL, King of France ..... 46 

The Chateau Wall at Bommiers .... 54 

La Tour au Pr^vot, part of the old La Tremoille 

Chateau at Thouars . . . . . .56 

Louis II., Comte de La Tri^moille [from a portrait by 

Ghirlandajo, at Chantilly) ...... 60 

LuDOVic LE More {from a portrait of the Milanese School, 

now in the Louvre) ....... 74 

FA9ADE OF the Church of Notre Dame at Thouars . 90 

Charlotte de La Tremoille, Princesse de Cond:^ 
[from a portrait by Franfois Quesnet in the Bihliotheque 
Nationale, Paris) ....... 96 

Jeanne de Montmorency, Duchesse de La Tr:^moille 

[from a portrait of the Clouet School) . . .104 

Claude de La Tremoille, Second Due de Thouars . 108 

The Tomb of Charlotte de La Tr:^moille, Princesse 

DE CONDlfi . . . . . . . . 120 

Charlotte de La Tremoille, Countess of Derby [from 

a picture by Vandyke) . . . . . .130 



XVI 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



TO FACE 
PAGE 



James Stanley, Earl of Derby, Husband of Charlotte 
DE La Tr]£moille {from a picture by Vandyke) . 

Charlotte de La Tr:6moille, Countess of Derby, with 
her Husband and their Daughter Catherine [from 
a picture by Vandyke) ..... 

Henry de La Tr^moille, Dug de Thouars 

Henry Charles de La Tr^moille, Prince de Tarente 

Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duchesse de La 
Tr:^moille et de Thouars .... 

The La Tremoille Chateau at Vitr£. 

Charlotte Amielie de La Tr:^moille, Princess of 
Altenburg ....... 

Count Griffenfeld ...... 

Franqois de La Tremoille, Marquis de Noirmoustier 

Marie Anne de La Tr:i£moille, Princesse des Ursins 

Madeleine de La Fayette, Duchesse de La Tr:6moille, 
AND her Son, Armand Ren:^, Dug de La Tremoille 
{from a picture attributed to Jervas) .... 

Facade of the Hotel de La Tremoille at Paris 

Marie Antoinette after the King's Death {from a 
portrait drawn in the Temple and presented to the Princesse 
de Tarente) ........ 

Emmanuelle de Chatillon, Princesse de Tarente 

Antoine Philippe, Prince de Talmond 

The Chateau of Serrant, Residence of the present 
Due DE La Tremoille 



136 



154'' 
174/ 
186 -" 

200'^ 
204^ 

206 "' 

208 

214 

224-^ 



260^ 
274/ 



282 
292 
298 

314 



/ 



FROM THE CRUSADES TO THE 
FRENCH REVOLUTION 

CHAPTER I 

LA TREMOILLES IN THE CRUSADES AND THE ENGLISH WARS. 
1040— 1397 

There is nothing to especially distinguish the small 
market town of La Tremoille, in Poitou^ from hundreds 
of other agricultural centres scattered here and there 
throughout the length and breadth of France. The little 
river Benaize, on which La Tremoille stands, is spanned 
by the usual solid stone bridge. From the bridge end 
there rambles up aimlessly into the country-side the 
usual Grand' Rue, with its side paths of irregular paving 
stones and its rough cast, slate-roofed houses, many with 
shop fronts, and generally of two stories, broken occa- 
sionally by a low gable end or the addition of a third floor. 

This is the little town which gave its name to, or 
received its name from, the La Tremoilles, of whom one, 
Pierre de La Tremoille, living in 1040, is the earliest 
known representative. But in days yet more remote, a 
lordship of La Tremoille formed part of the domain of the 
Counts of Poitou, and eventually became a separate fief 
held by younger members of the Count's family. 

Of these early Sieurs de La Tremoille, little is known, 
save that from the days of Pierre onwards, they grew 
in wealth, dignity, and dominions. Later from simple 
lords or seigneurs they rose to be counts, then dukes, 

c.r. b 



2 FROM THE CRUSADES 

then princes, always, as we have said, alljdng themselves 
with great houses, notably in the sixteenth century with 
that of Arragon, through which they assumed the title of 
Princes of Taranto, and claimed a right to the crown of 
Naples, enjoying at the French court for nearly loo years 
privileges only accorded to foreign princes. 

Down through all the ages of the family history the 
La Tremoille women have ever occupied a position of 
unusual honour. While the descent of the French 
Monarchy was subject to the restrictions of the Salic Law, 
not so the Duchy of La Tremoille, which, in the event of 
the failure of male heirs,-^ was held capable of descending 
through the female line. La Tremoille princesses, in the 
seventeenth century, attained to the highest of court 
honours, that of " having the tabouret," as it was called, 
which meant that from the tender age of seven a princess 
of this house might in her sovereign's presence remain 
proudly seated on a folding chair without arms or back, 
called a Tabouret. 

Of the earliest La Tremoilles we know the bare fact 
that they took part in the Crusades ; that Guy I. accom- 
panied Godefroi de Bouillon to the Holy Land in 1096 ; 
that Guy's son, Guillaume H., went with Louis VH. on 
the second Crusade, in 1147 ; and that Thibaud or 
Imbaud, with his three sons, in 1248, followed St. Louis 
on his disastrous African expedition. But of Thibaud 
we know also that in the narrow streets of an African 
town, Mansourah, whither the vanguard of the Crusaders 
had been led by the rash zeal of the Comte d'Artois, the 
King's brother, he and his sons, with the flower of French 
chivalry, assailed by the Saracens with " arrows and 
pieces of wood," fell fighting gloriously. 

1 This event has never yet occurred. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 3 

Not, however, before the thirteenth century is it 
possible to piece together anything Uke a connected 
history of this house. And the first La Tremoille of whom 
we possess any detailed knowledge is Guy VL whose 
parents were Guy V., Grand Panetier^ of France in 1353, 
and Radegonde Guenaud.^ 

Born about the middle of the fourteenth century, 
Guy VL, on his father's death, entered into vast posses- 
sions, broad lands in such different parts of the kingdom 
as Poitou, Berry, Bourbonnais, Burgundy, Limousin, 
Orleannais, Savoy and I'lle-de-France. This extensive 
domain was further augmented by his marriage with 
Marie de Sully, one of the wealthiest heiresses of her day. 
It was Marie who brought her husband that great castle 
of Sully on the Loire, not far from Orleans, one of the 
most princely of La Tremoille residences. Despite the 
renovations and additions of four centuries, in its great 
central wing it still perpetuates the memory of the opulent 
Madame Marie. 

When still young, Sieur Guy, was already renowned as 
un brilliant chevalier. It was in that desultory warfare 
by which, after Cre9y and Poitiers, the English gradually 
lost the conquests they had won that Guy de La Tre- 
moille won his spurs. In 1382, in the Cathedral of St. 
Denis, from the hands of his sovereign, Charles VL, Guy 
received the glorious oriflamme of Clovis and of Charle- 
magne, the sacred standard of France, woven of costly 
silk, called sandal, and edged about with tassels of green, 
which he bore gallantly before his king into battle 
with the English. Two years later Guy was appointed 

1 Master of the King's pantry. 

2 For Guy's other children, see Anselme, " Histoire Gen^alogique at 
Chronologique," IV., i8i. 

B 2 



4 FROM THE CRUSADES 

one of the ambassadors to cross the Channel and treat of 
peace with England. There so deeply did he impress 
the English as a gallant knight, that two years later 
still. Sir Peter Courtenay journeyed into France with no 
object but to break a lance with this expert warrior. 

Together Guy and his adversary tilted before the King 
and his court, while the Duchess of Burgundy, wife of the 
great Philip the Bold, commanded prayers to be offered 
for the success of the French champion. But King 
Charles, hesitating to take sides, and equally dreading the 
mischance of either combatant, of his good vassal, or of 
his trustful guest, after a few bouts ordered the lists to be 
closed before either knight had won any vantage. 

At such treatment we are not surprised to find Sir 
Peter bitterly incensed. Only with rich gifts and fair 
words was his anger appeased ; but even these did 
not entirely content him, for on the way home he 
complained bitterly of the French King's action. The 
numerous heralds, who had accompanied the knight from 
England, were perhaps better pleased, for they had 
received between them from the King's uncle, the Duke 
of Burgundy, no less a sum than 150 francs, which is more 
than ten times as much in modern money. Meanwhile, 
the great Duke Philip testified his appreciation of the 
valour and prowess of his cher et feal cousin, as he called 
La Tremoille, by appointing him his executor, and directing 
that on his death he should be interred at the Duke's 
feet in the Carthusian monastery of Champnol-les-Dijon. 
Here we note the earliest evidence of that close connection 
between the La Tremoilles and the Dukes of Burgundy, 
which was to endure for more than a century.^ 

1 Some writers describe the La Tremoilles as of Burgundian origin. 
It is certain that from very early times they held lands in Burgundy. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 5 

Closely associated with his suzerain, Duke Philip, was 
Guy de La Tremoille in that monster expedition against 
England, which was one of the greatest wonders and the 
most disastrous failures of the age. For like Napoleon's 
expedition, this vast host, having assembled through 
many months on the coast of Flanders, never even 
succeeded in crossing the Channel. 

" The biggest fleet that had ever been seen since the 
creation of the world," 1,400 ships, hired or purchased 
from well nigh every maritime power in Europe, Duke 
Philip, during the summer of 1386, assembled in Flemish 
harbours. Meanwhile to the camp at Arras there 
flocked the flower of French chivalry, hundreds of knights, 
who lavished on their accoutrement untold sums, for 
which they looked to recoup themselves by booty captured 
in England. Covered with silken tents from which 
floated all the pomp of heraldry — ^lions, dragons, and 
unicorns, destined to defy the leopards of England — the 
camp at Arras in its magnificence anticipated the Field 
of the Cloth of Gold. Accompanying the knights was a 
vast host, mustering no less than 8,000 men-at-arms and 
60,000 foot-soldiers ; while for the feeding of this great 
multitude there was gathered from every part of France 
vast store =^of victuals — hay, oats, wine, sacks of flour, 
barrels of salt and of onions, and casks filled with yolks 
of eggs. 

But the crowning glory of Duke Philip's preparations 
was a complete wooden town with houses, towers and 
pahsades, constructed in Breton forests, and intended to 
be set up on British shores, where it was to form a kind of 
moveable Calais for the shelter of French troops. No 
less than seventy-two vessels were sent to convey this 
marvellous triumph of mediaeval engineering to Flanders. 



6 FROM THE CRUSADES 

But now mischance began to overtake Duke Philip's scheme. 
Between Flanders and Brittany, tempests beat upon the 
wooden town, and shattered it to pieces. Meanwhile the 
host at Arras was awaiting the coming of the King who 
was to command it. But quarrels at court and jealousy 
of Duke Philip were delaying the King's departure, and 
the summer months were fleeting by. When at length 
he arrived at Arras, the most favourable time for 
crossing had passed, autumn had set in, the ruined 
knights had begun to return to their mortgaged demesnes, 
the vast host was dwindling ; then the equinoctial gales 
began, the sea guarded Great Britain. 

" And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild 
Spoke safety to his island-child." ^ 

Thus vanished Guy de La Tremoille's first and only 
opportunity of displaying his warlike prowess on English 
soil. 

Then for a while there was peace between France 
and England. So now warriors on both sides the Channel 
might together turn their arms against the Infidel. In 
1389, as in St. Louis' day, it was against the African 
Miscreant that the Crusade was directed. Guy de La 
Tremoille, with his brother Guillaume, and his brother- 
in-law Sully, was not loath, we may be sure, to follow 
the Due de Bourbon, another of the King's uncles, who 
led the French Crusaders. 

In some of his most picturesque passages, Froissart has 
described the voyage of these " Christen men " to what 
he calls " the town of Afryke," the modern Almalia, very 
near the site of ancient Carthage. 

" The trumpets blew up at their departing," writes 

1 Coleridge, '•' Ode on the Departing Year," quoted by Michelet, " Hist, 
de France," Bk. VII., Chap. II. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 7 

the historian/ "and it was great pleasure to behold how 
they rowed abroad in the sea, which was peaceable, calm 
and fair, showing herself desirous that the Christen men 
should come before the strong town of Afryke. The 
Christen navy was goodly to regard, and well ordered ; 
and it was great beauty to see the banners and penons of 
silk, with the arms and badges of the lordes and other, 
waving with the wind, and shining against the sun. 
Coming to the haven of Afryke, the Christen men lodged 
all night there. The next morning the weather was fair 
and clear, and the air in good temper, and the sun rose, 
that it was pleasure to behold. Then the Christen men 
began to stir and to make ready to take land. Then 
trumpets and clarions began to sound in the galleys and 
vessels, and made great noise. And about nine of the 
clock, when the Christen men had taken a little refreshing 
with drink, then were they rejoiced and lighted. And, 
according as they had appointed before, they sent in first 
their light vessels called brigandyns, well furnished with 
artillery ; they entered into the haven, and after them 
came the galleys and the other ships of the fleet in good 
order. 

"And, turning towards the land by the sea side, there 
was a strong castle with high towers, and especially one 
Tower which defended the sea side and the land also ; 
and in this Tower was a bricoll or an engine which was not 
idle, but still did cast great stones among the Christen 
men's ships. And likewise in every tower of the town 
on the sea-side, there were engines to cast stones." 

Despite these stones which assailed them, the " Christen 
men" appear to have received no great hurt in landing. 
And without further let or hindrance from the Saracens, 
they pitched their tents upon the shore, Guillaume de La 
Tremoille's on the right of the Duke's from which floated, 
his banner covered with flowers de luce, with Our Lady 

1 Lord Berner's Trans., ed. 1812, II., 499. 



8 FROM THE CRUSADES 

in the midst and the arms of Bourbon at her feet. Next 
to Guillaume's tent came the Comte de Sully's, and then 
Sire Guy's. 

From the walls of Afryke " the false Saracens " had 
watched the " Christen men " disembarking, and had mar- 
velled to see them approach the shore in little boats. 
But, save for the throwing of stones, the Infidel made no 
attempt to prevent their landing. 

Soon, however, tidings of the enemy's descent upon 
their coasts were bruited abroad in the country round 
about Afryke ; and a great Saracen army came and 
encamped over against the " Christen men" on the sea- 
shore. 

Then there began what was little more than a long 
drawn out tournament. On the second day in the morn- 
ing, the Saracens came to skirmish with the " Christen 
men ; " and the skirmishing endured the space of two 
hours. The Saracens would not fight hand to hand, but 
they fought with casting of darts and shooting, and 
would not foolishly adventure themselves, but wisely and 
sagely " reculed." 

Among the Saracens was one knight who especially 
distinguished himself. His name was Agadingor Doly- 
ferne (sic), and his father was the Duke of Olyferne. 
Agadingor was always well mounted on a light and ready 
horse, " which seemed as if he did flie in the air." Armed 
he was with three feathered darts, and right v/ell could 
he handle them. About his head he wore a long white 
towel. His apparel was black, and his own colour 
brown. The knights of France would fain have taken 
him, but they could never entrap or enclose him, so swift 
was his horse, and so ready to his hand. 

The "Christen men " said they thought he did such deeds 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION g 

for the love of some young lady of his country. And true 
it was that he loved entirely the lady Azala, daughter of 
the King of Tunis. " I cannot tell," says Froissart as 
he relates this story, " if they were married together after 
or not," 

After some weeks of this skirmishing, the Saracens 
bethought them to send a messenger to the "Christen men " 
to inquire of them wherefore they had come against the 
town of Afryke. So they took an interpreter, who spoke 
Italian, and sent him. On the way to the Christen 
camp the interpreter met a Genoese, and together they 
went to the " Christen men " and asked them wherefore 
they had come to Afryke. 

Then the Due de Bourbon held a council of war in his 
tent, summoning no doubt the two La Tremoilles and 
their brother-in-law Sully. And, after deliberating as to 
what answer they should send to their enemies, the 
knights told the interpreter to say that because the 
Saracens had crucified Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
therefore had the Christen men come against them. 

Wlien the interpreter rendered this answer to those 
who had sent him, the Saracens did nothing but laugh, 
and say how that answer was nothing reasonable, for it 
was the Jews who put Christ to death, and not they. 

Now this skirmishing and curvetting in the plain had 
already lasted a month, and no attack had yet been made 
upon the town. Soon after the answer had been sent to the 
Saracens, the "Christen men " stormed Afryke and entered 
within the walls, where many of their number were slain, 
and whence they were forced to retreat, having failed to 
capture the town. Then great discontent arose in the 
army. The Due de Bourbon was arrogant and lazy. 
Famine and pestilence attacked the " Christen men," and 



10 FROM THE CRUSADES 

also many died of the great heat. Moreover, the knights 
began to fear the treachery of the Genoese, whose ships 
had brought them to Afryke. And so, seeing there was 
nothing more to be done, the " Christen men " — such of 
them as were left — returned crestfallen to their own homes. 

The La Tremoille brothers were among those who had 
escaped the mischance of war, famine and disease. They 
with their companions-in-arms assigned the ignominious 
failure of the expedition to the incompetency of its 
leader, the Due de Bourbon, who had done nothing but 
lounge idly at his tent door, surveying his camp in super- 
cilious taciturnity. 

Nothing daunted, however. Sire Guy and his brother 
began to dream of new conquests. And soon we shall 
find them setting forth on another crusade. Meanwhile, 
Guy's sword was not allowed to rust in its scabbard. 
When there were no English to fight in France, he was 
ready to strike a blow for any righteous cause that might 
present itself. Accordingly in the Tremoille archives we 
find evidence of numerous sums of money received by 
Sire Guy, as the reward of his military services, from 
various European potentates, from Pope Clement VII., 
from Galeas Visconti Duke of Milan, from the Duchess of 
Brabant, and from the Queen of Naples and Jerusalem. 
Not that Guy de La Tremoille was a mercenary soldier. 
He offered his services freely ; but when they had been 
rendered he was apparently not above accepting some 
financial acknowledgment of them. 

In 1391, Charles VI. tendered to Guy de La Tremoille 
the highest military honour he had to bestow, the sword 
of the Constable of France. The previous Constable, 
Olivier de Clisson, unpopular at court, had been deprived 
of his office, and an attempt had been made to assassinate 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ii 

him. But Olivier had been Count Guy's friend and com- 
panion-in-arms, and La Tremoille loyally refused to 
profit by his friend's disgrace. 

Instead he went with King Charles on an expedition to 
punish the would-be murderer, who had taken refuge in 
the heaths of Brittany. It was with Count Guy at his 
side that, in the broiling August heat, the King at the 
head of his barons rode forth into the west country, and 
there was overtaken by the first of those terrible attacks 
of madness which were to plunge the realm into ruin and 
confusion. 

Soon afterwards, another truce^. having been signed 
with England, and sealed by the marriage of the French 
King's little daughter Isabelle with Richard II., the 
widower King of England, French and English knights 
again prepared to wage war in common against the 
Infidel. And again Guy and Guillaume de La Tremoille 
took the cross. 

At the request of Sigismund, King of Hungary, the 
Crusaders directed their march towards the Balkans, 
where that great Ottoman leader, Bajazet, surnamed 
Ildemin or Lightning, was laying waste the country with 
fire and sword, advancing to the walls of Constantinople, 
and boasting that he would feed his horse with a bushel 
of oats on St. Peter's altar at Rome. 

This time the French Crusaders were led by the King's 
cousin, the young Comte de Nevers, eldest son of Duke 
Philip, and later to be known as John the Fearless, On the 
most extravagant and luxurious scale did the French 
knights make their preparations. Their banners and 
saddle cloths were embroidered in gold and silver, their 

1 Signed in 1395 for three years, and in the following year prolonged 
for twenty-eight. 



12 FROM THE CRUSADES 

tents were of satin ; carts laden with silver plate and 
delicate wines followed the army. 

Thus equipped, gay and joyous as if for a tournament, 
commanded by the flower of French chivalry, the crusad- 
ing host, some 10,000 strong, set forth to join in Hungary 
the German, Polish, English and Hungarian troops 
collected by Sigismund. 

No sooner had the Crusaders joined forces than 
dissension broke out in the councils of war. The cautious 
Sigismund wished to remain on the defensive, while the 
headstrong French knights insisted on immediately 
marching in search of the enemy. 

Having crossed the Danube at Orsova, the Crusaders 
proceeded to lay siege to the town of Nicopolis. Then, 
with a rapidity which justified his name, Bajazet, raising 
the siege of Constantinople, descended upon the Crusaders 
before they had the slightest idea that he was even in the 
neighbourhood. The French lords were at table and 
already heated with wine, when their scouts brought in 
the news that Bajazet was upon them. Again the 
impetuous Comte de Nevers, rejecting the Hungarian 
King's counsels of caution, insisted on leading his troops 
to the attack. And at first he was victorious, forcing a 
rampart of stakes and overcoming even the Janissaries 
themselves. Then, inflated with pride and zeal, he 
committed the error of the Comte d'Artois at Mansourah, 
and allowed the French vanguard to be cut off from the 
main body of the army. Overwhelmed by numerous 
squadrons which issued from the woods, these intrepid 
warriors were surrounded on all sides. 

The rank and file, having refused to abjure their faith, 
were to the number of 10,000 beheaded in the con- 
queror's presence. Nevers and four and twenty knights 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 13 

who had escaped slaughter were kept as prisoners and 
held to ransom. Among them were Lord Guy and his 
brother. 

That year, as the King was keeping Christmas, at Paris, 
in his H6tel of St, Paul, there dashed into his presence a 
messenger from the east, all booted and spurred and dust 
stained with travel. He was one of the twenty-five 
prisoners taken at Nicopolis, and Bajazet had released 
him in order that he might carry to France tidings of the 
disaster. 

It was only with the greatest difficulty that the 
enormous ransoms which the Turk demanded could be 
collected. Lord Guy's for the most part was borrowed 
from the Pallavicini at Geneva. Meanwhile, in order to 
appease the conqueror's wrath, and secure good treat- 
ment of the prisoners. King Charles and Duke Philip sent 
him rich gifts — a gold salt-cellar of curious workmanship, 
a cast of Norwegian hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet 
cloth, of fine Reims linen and of Arras tapestry, repre- 
senting the battles of Alexander. 

For nine months the prisoners were dragged from place 
to place in their conqueror's train. And then at length 
their ransoms arrived. 

Before they left him, Bajazet let fiie at his prisoners 
one parting shaft of derision. Summoning the French 
knights to his presence, he cried : " Raise what puissance 
ye will, spare nought, and come against me a second time. 
Ye shall find me always ready to receive ye in the field in 
plain hattle." To point this mockery, and to reciprocate 
the French King's gifts, Bajazet sent him a mass of iron, 
a suit of Turkish armour made of wool, a drum and bows 
with strings made of human entrails. 

From Bajazet's camp the French knights sailed in 



14 FROM THE CRUSADES 

galleys to the island of Rhodes, staying on their way in 
the port of Mathelyn, There Guy and his brother were 
graciously received by the Lady of Mathelyn, who, we 
read, was as well assured of herself as any lady in Greece, 
for had she not been brought up at the Emperor Con- 
stantine's court with the Lady Mary of Bourbon ? And 
from her she had learnt French nurture, " for in France 
the lords and ladies were more honorable than in any 
other countries." 

By the Lady of Mathelyn the French knights were 
newly apparelled in shirts, gowns, and other garments of 
fine damask, according to the usage of Greece. Then, 
proceeding to Rhodes, they received from the Grand 
Prior some gold and silver of which they stood in dire 
need. 

But to Sire Guy it was not given to return to his native 
land, nor to be buried at Dijon as Duke Philip had directed. 
For he had never recovered from the wounds received at 
Nicopolis. At Rhodes a fever fell upon him, and he died 
on May 4th, 1397, and was buried in the Church of St. 
John, " the lords of France doing his obsequy right 
reverently." 

Meanwhile, away in France, Marie de Sully was looking 
eagerly for her husband's return. On May 22nd, 1397, 
Duke Philip had sent her word that Sire Guy was well, 
that his ransom had been paid, and that he was on his 
way home. On August 7th, when she was in her chateau 
of Craon, came the news that Guy lay dead in the Island 
of Rhodes.^ 

A life full of care Dame Marie must have led during her 
husband's absences on the Crusades. For to raise funds 
for these expeditions his lands had been heavily mort- 

1 Bertrand de Broussillon, " La Maison de Craon," II., 38. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 15 

gaged, and on Marie it had devolved to pay the interest 
on the money lent, and out of such revenue as remained 
to keep the princely household going. Now she was left 
a widow with seven children, four sons and three daughters. 
Perhaps it was to provide herself and her family with a 
protector that, soon after Guy's death, she gave a step- 
father to her children in the person of Charles d'Albret, 
Constable of France. By him she was to become the 
ancestress of French Kings, of whom the first was the 
famous Henry Quatre. 



i6 FROM THE CRUSADES 



CHAPTER II 

GEORGES DE LA TREMOILLE. I382 (?) — 1446 
"A kind of Gargantua, who devoured the country."^ 

Towards the dawn of the fifteenth century, disruptive 
forces were everywhere at work throughout Christendom ; 
and among the most powerful were the violence and greed 
of barons like Georges de La Tremoille. 

" Luxury and vice such as 'twere piteous to tell of had 
kindled against the French the wrath of Heaven, and in 
the divine hand the King of England was but a rod for 
chastisement." This was the consolation which Henry V. 
addressed to Charles, Duke of Orleans, who, having been 
taken prisoner at Agincourt, in abject grief and utter 
desolation was refusing food and drink, like many a 
prisoner of later date. 

But in his complacent self-satisfaction, Henry V. 
failed to discern the true cause of the wickedness he held 
himself divinely appointed to punish. He would have 
been the last to admit that his own people, by their 
perpetual invasions of French territory, had created that 
prolonged disorder, during which French barons became 
monsters of iniquity preying upon women and children, 
and scrupling not even to enter into contracts with the 
Evil One. 

Almost incredible are the hideous crimes said to have 
been committed in France in those days. The story of 
the ghastly enormities perpetrated by Gille de Rais, the 

^ " The Life of Joan of Arc," translated from the French of Anatole 
France, I., 147. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 17 

original of Blue Beard, is well known. And Gille was a 
relative of La Tremoille. The brutality of Georges de La 
Tremoille himself has seldom been equalled. By his 
persistent cruelty he caused the death of his first wife. 
But the victim who suffered most from his cruelty was 
hapless France. Poverty stricken she was when he 
found her ; yet by his ruthless extortions " he stripped 
her to the bone, and left her a bloodless corpse, a mere 
skeleton." 

Georges, the eldest son of Guy de La Tremoille and 
Marie de Sully, was born in the early eighties of the 
fourteenth century. He was brought up in the house- 
hold of the Burgundian dukes, first by Duke Philip and, 
after his death, by his son, John the Fearless. 

In 1407, Georges became Duke John's chief Chamber- 
lain, and in that year fought with the Burgundian forces 
against the citizens of Liege at the battle of Tongres. 
Then King Charles VI. appointed him Master of Woods 
and Waters, and Governor of Dauphine. By this time 
La Tremoille was one of the boon companions of the 
worthless Dauphin Louis,^ generally known as the Duke 
of Guyenne. And in that capacity he played no incon- 
siderable part in the troubled events of 1413, one of the 
most revolutionary years in French history. 

Charles VI. was now hopelessly mad, and the royal 
power was alternately exercised by the leaders of the 
Burgundian and Orleanist factions, Duke John and 
Bernard, Count of Armagnac. As leader of the Orleanists, 
henceforth to be known as Armagnacs, Count Bernard 
had succeeded Louis, Duke of Orleans, murdered some 
six years earlier by Burgundy's paid assassins. 

1 Three of Charles VI. 's sons in succession bore the title of Dauphin : 
Louis, who died in 1415 ; then Jean, who died in 1416 ; and then 
Charles, who, in 1422, succeeded to the throne as Charles VII. 

C.R. C 



i8 FROM THE CRUSADES 

In 1413, however, Burgundians and Armagnacs alike 
were superseded by the dominance of the Butchers or 
Cabochiens, the richest, the oldest, and the most in- 
fluential of the trade corporations of Paris. Including 
not merely slaughterers and sellers of cattle, but tanners, 
leather-workers and tripe-dealers, the Butchers were 
proud to trace back the origin of their corporation to 
Roman times. Indeed, they considered themselves a 
commercial aristocracy. Kings and courtiers did not 
disdain to don the white hood which was the sign of their 
order. The Butchers' shops descended like feudal fiefs 
from father to son. Their nobilit}^ were the families of 
St. Yon, of Thibert and of Legoix, who constituted what 
was called La Grande Boucherie, and who dwelt near the 
present Tour St. Jacques, behind what was then the 
Ch&.telet Prison. In those days the citizens of Paris were 
organised into quarters, each quarter into hundreds, and 
each hundred into groups of ten. Every quarter had its 
captain or quartenier, whose duty it was to command the 
watch, and to provide for the defence of his district. In 
1413, the captain of the Butchers' quarter was Jean 
Caboche, who gave his name to the fraternity. 

The quarter of Jean Caboche, consisting of an army of 
slaughterers, salesmen and apprentices, was a formidable 
force which had to be reckoned with in all city riots. 
Indeed, considering on the one hand the Crown's weakness 
and the feuds among the barons, and on the other the 
Butchers' wealth and compact organisation, it seemed 
not unlikely that this corporation of Parisian tradesmen 
might one day come to rule the kingdom. 

Duke John of Burgundy was quick to grasp this 
situation and to turn it to his own advantage, wherefore 
he made friends with the Butchers, sending them every 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 19 

year casks of choice wine from his rich vintage of 
Beaune. 

Precisely how far this aUiance between Burgundy and 
the Butchers extended and how much it involved is 
difficult to tell. At times Duke John seemed to be 
using the Cabochiens as his instruments, at others the 
tradesmen seemed to be bending the great Duke to their 
will and employing him to carry out a policy which was 
all their own. In the tangled turmoil of events in 1413 
it is impossible to say whether it was Burgundy who 
incited the Butchers or the Butchers Burgundy. But 
one point is clear : the Butchers believed that all the 
woes from which France was suffering were caused by 
the King's lunacy, which was a punishment sent from 
God^ ; and they held that it was for the sins of royalty 
God had smitten the King with madness, and struck 
down his brother, the Duke of Orleans. The Butchers' 
one hope for the Kingdom of France lay in La Tremoille's 
friend, the Dauphin Louis ; but this hope was tempered 
by the fear lest he should resemble his father. 

In this year, 1413, Louis was seventeen, a much more 
mature age then than now. For at fifteen Louis' cousin, 
Charles, Duke of Orleans, was a married man, the father 
of a family, and the nominal leader of a great party. 
Yet at seventeen the Dauphin was set on nothing save 
pageantry and pleasure. This frivolity, however, the 
Butchers attributed to evil influences, one of the most 
pernicious of which they considered to be his friendship 
with La Tremoille. There was no man in France whom 
the Butchers more bitterly hated. And to separate him 
from the Dauphin became one of their chief objects 
throughout this year. Had it not been for the powerful 

1 Michelet, " Hist, de France," Bk. VIII., Chap. III. 

C 2 



20 FROM THE CRUSADES 

influence which Duke John exercised on his behalf, 
Georges would doubtless have shared the fate of other 
members of the Dauphin's circle, whom the Butchers 
drowned in the Seine or imprisoned in the Louvre. The 
foUoMdng graphic details of one of La Tremoille's 
encounters with these tradesmen have been preserved in 
a chronicle of the period.^ 

It fell out that upon July loth, 1413, as a little before 
midnight, a company of Butchers, led by one, Helion de 
Jacqueville, a knight of Beauce, were returning from 
their patrol of the city to their quarters in St. Jacques 
that they passed by the Hotel de Guyenne, the Dauphin's 
palace in the Rue St. Antoine. There the puritanical 
ears of the watch were offended by the sound of music 
and of dancing. Highly improper did it seem to Jacque- 
ville and his men that the heir to the fair realm of France 
should be keeping high revelry at that hour of the night. 
With other functions of government the Butchers had 
already assumed the censorship of public morals. And 
in this capacity they forced their way into the palace, 
penetrating even into the royal presence chamber. 

There finding the Dauphin dancing with his lords and 
ladies, Jacqueville rated his prince soundly for being a 
profligate and a spendthrift. But La Tremoille, who was 
standing by, was the last to tolerate such an intrusion 
on his own and his prince's pleasures. To Jacqueville's 
sermon La Tremoille retorted that it was grossly imper- 
tinent to address the Dauphin thus, and at such an hour 
to intrude on the royal presence. In the violent dispute 
which ensued Louis, in self-defence, drew his dagger and 
three times smote Jacqueville on the breast, but did 

1 Juvenal des Ursins, "Histoire de Charles VI., Roi de France," ed : 
Michaud et Poujoulat, Ser. I., Vol. 11., p. 485. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 21 

him no hurt, because the knight wore a coat of mail 
beneath his cloak. On the morrow, the Butchers were 
preparing to take and slay the proud baron who on the 
previous evening had bearded them in the Dauphin's 
chamber, when Burgundy intervened on behalf of his 
vassal, and saved La Tremoille's life. 

The arrogant Cabochiens, however, were heading for 
a fall. The other Parisian corporations would not long 
brook the insolence of the Butchers. The Carpenters of 
Paris, declaring they would soon see whether there were 
not in the city as many hewers of wood as slayers of 
beasts, called to their aid the Duke of Orleans and the 
Count of Armagnac, who, with a powerful force, were 
marching towards the capital. 

On his rivals' entrance into Paris, on August 23rd, Duke 
John prudently withdrew, taking the poor, mad King with 
him. But a party of citizens intercepted the Duke's com- 
pany at Vincennes and brought the King back to his 
capital. Two of the Butchers' leaders were executed, and 
their quarters in St. Jacques were razed to the ground. 

La Tremoille did not, as we might expect, accompany 
Duke John into exile. Now that the Armagnacs were 
in the ascendant, and his enemies, the Butchers, deposed 
from power, Georges forgot the gratitude he owed to 
Burgundy, and, remaining in Paris with his friend the 
Dauphin, threw in his lot with the new government. In 
1416 we find King Charles undertaking to pay La 
TremoiUe 10,000 francs if he will raise a company 
of men-at-arms to proceed against the English and the 
Burgundians. Georges duly performed his part of the 
bargain. But, when he found that Charles was not so 
ready to perform his. La Tremoille paid himself the 
10,000 francs out of the purse of one of the King's 



22 FROM THE CRUSADES 

tax-gatherers who, with a goodly sum collected in Orleans 
and destined for the royal exchequer, had the misfortune 
to pass by Sully on his way to court. 

When the Dauphin's dissolute court was scattered on 
Louis' death in 1415, La Tremoille speedily joined the 
no less licentious circle which gathered round Queen 
Isabelle at her palaces of Vincennes and Melun. 

No name in French history is more execrated than 
that of Isabelle, Charles VL's Queen ; for she it was 
who some years later sold France to the English. Yet 
her sad history must arouse pity even in the most 
censorious breast. Radiantly beautiful in youth, she 
was passionately adored by her royal husband. Then 
lunacy converted Charles VL from the most amorous 
into the most persecuting of consorts. He, whom 
Isabelle's portrait had once struck dumb with admiration, 
was now driven frantic by the mere sight of her arms 
quartered with his own. To save her life the Queen was 
compelled to establish herself in a separate residence, 
where her weak, voluptuous nature found consolation in 
the attentions of numerous admirers. Among them was 
her brother-in-law, Louis, Duke of Orleans. And it 
was as, with a song upon his lips, he rode carelessly out 
of the gateway of the Queen's Hotel, Barbette, into the 
darkness of the night that Louis had been set upon and 
slain by the Duke of Burgundy's hired assassins. 

Shunning an abode haunted by so sad a memory, the 
pleasure-loving Queen removed to Vincennes. There 
she rapidly sank into a valetudinarian and sybaritish 
old age. She, who had once been the most graceful and 
agile of horsewomen, grew so corpulent that her valets had 
to carry her in a chair from room to room. At Vincennes, 
while the peasants of France were starving, Isabelle 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 23 

hoarded treasure, and lavished vast sums on all manner 
of whimsies, on aviaries of singing birds, on menageries, 
and on marvellous medicines. 

To the Queen, in 1415, resorted, as we have said, 
La Tremoille and all the dead Dauphin's boon com- 
panions. And one is not surprised that to contemporary 
moralists, scandalised by the manners of the Vincennes 
court, the spindle legs of these gay gallants encased in 
the tightest of hose and the high-horned, wide-eared 
head-dresses of their ladies, appeared somewhat devilish. 

Soon, however, serious national matters claimed even 
the attention of these voluptuous courtiers, for the knights 
of France were summoned to resist Henry of England 
upon the field of Agincourt. And there, on October 25th, 
1415, La Tremoille was taken prisoner. Happily for 
him, but unhappily for France, he was not considered 
sufficiently important to be carried away to England 
with prisoners of higher rank, such as the Duke of Orleans, 
the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Vendome and the 
Count of Richemont. So, on November 29th, having 
received from King Henry a robe of fine damask, and 
undertaken to pay a heavy ransom at the great Lendit 
Fair at St. Denis on the following Midsummer Day, 
La Tremoille was liberated at Calais. 

We suspect that it was to help pay his ransom that 
Georges now resolved to take a wife. The unhappy 
victim he selected was a great heiress, ten years his 
senior, a princess of the blood royal, Jeanne, Countess of 
Boulogne and of Auvergne, once the adored wife, and 
now the widow of the old Duke of Berry. 

Only four months after the Duke's death, in the year 
after Agincourt, Jeanne d'Auvergne and La Tremoille 
were married. 



24 FROM THE CRUSADES 

In the contract signed at Aigueperse, Jeanne unwisely 
agreed that she and her husband should hold all their 
property in common. Of this generosity she soon had 
reason to repent ; and, falling out with her rapacious 
husband, she settled all her wealth on her cousin, Marie 
d'Auvergne. Meanwhile the Duke of Burgundy, who 
was Jeanne's overlord, refused to deliver into her husband's 
hands the county of Boulogne. So, La Tremoille, doubly 
disappointed in his greed, vented his fury on his miserable 
wife, whom he imprisoned in a lonely castle of Auvergne 
until, in 1418, death came to her release. 

La Tremoille was now fully launched on a career of 
rapine and violence. In the neighbourhood of his great 
castles peace and security were unknown. In order 
to further his covetous designs he did not hesitate to 
lay waste whole districts with fire and sword ; and from 
the confusion and disorder already existing in France 
he made ready to suck no small advantage. Although 
more than once he was employed to negotiate terms of 
peace between English and French, Burgundians and 
Armagnacs, peace was the very last thing he wanted. 
Had his negotiations been successful, which they never 
were, he would have pleaded in the words of the trouba- 
dour, Bertrand de Born : " When there is peace on every 
hand let a strip of war be left for me." 

In 1418, La Tremoille, apparently without any provoca- 
tion, had seized Gouge de Charpaignes, Bishop of 
Clermont, and imprisoned him in his castle of Sully, 
intending to keep him there until he should pay the 
ransom his captor demanded. And it was only the 
appearance before Sully of the Dauphin himself at the 
head of a formidable army that set the unhappy bishop 
at liberty. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 25 

Now, on his wife's death La Tremoille determined that 
at any cost he would conquer her inheritance ; and with 
this object he sent an army into Auvergne. But again 
his lawless plans were thwarted by the Dauphin, who, 
in 1423, despatched against him Marshal Gilbert de La 
Fayette at the head of a formidable force. La Tremoille 
withdrew his troops from Auvergne, but he never forgave 
the general who had compelled him to do so ; and when, 
some years later, he became minister of the Crown, one 
of his first acts was to deprive La Fayette of the command 
and to banish him from Court, appointing in his stead 
his (La Tremoille's) own notorious cousin, Gille de Rais. 

After the signing at Troyes in 1420 of that disastrous 
treaty which made King Henry V. of England heir to 
the French crown, France became divided into two 
hostile kingdoms : roughly speaking, the country north 
of the Loire acknowledged the King of England and was 
friendly to his great ally the Duke of Burgundy, while 
the country south of that river was friendly to the 
Armagnacs and loyal to the mad King's son, the Dauphin 
Charles, known as " the King of Bourges," because he 
made that city his capital.^ 

La Tremoille would doubtless have preferred to remain 
a free lance, independent of either potentate ; but recent 
events had shown him the disadvantages of such an 
attitude. His defeat in Auvergne convinced him of the 
prudence of throwing in his lot with one party or the 
other, and he selected the Dauphin's because over it, 
being the weaker, he would have the best chance of 
domineering. 

La Tremoille's choice was fraught with the direst 

1 Charles VI. and Henry V. died in the same year, 1422. Following 
the custom of the time, we shall describe Charles VII. as Dauphin until, 
in 1429, he was crowned by Joan of Arc at Reims. 



26 FROM THE CRUSADES 

consequences for France. As Councillor-Chamberlain he 
came to exercise over the Dauphin's mind the most 
disastrous influence. In the years which preceded La 
Tremoille's rule the Prince had shown himself capable of 
acting with wisdom and vigour, after La Tremoille's fall 
Charles developed into a wise and energetic monarch ; 
but during the years of La Tremoille's ministry he was 
the meanest, the most phlegmatic, and the most abject of 
princes. That this monster of iniquity, " this Gargantua 
who devoured the country," did not succeed in per- 
manently ruining France is chiefly due to Joan of Arc's 
heroic example and inspiring initiative. 

Precisely how La Tremoille came to exercise so 
pernicious an influence over the Dauphin is somewhat 
mysterious. The first sign of their alliance was Charles's 
despatch of La Tremoille in December, 1425, on an 
embassy to Burgundy at Bruges. And it was on this 
journey, that at the hands of a free lance, Perrinet Gres- 
sart, the Dauphin's emissary suffered that fate which he 
had so often inflicted on others : he was detained in the 
citadel of La Charite until he had paid Gressart 14,000 
crowns, as well as another 6,000 in the shape of gifts 
which the prisoner was compelled to bestow on the 
captains and wife of his captor. One might chuckle with 
delight to find La Tremoille thus being paid in his own 
coin, did not the ultimate advantage which he was 
careful to derive from his imprisonment suggest that, 
after all, the incident had been planned by the prisoner 
himself, with a view to compensation. For, on La 
Tremoille's return to court we find him extracting from 
the Dauphin the greater part of his ransom and rich lands 
in Poitou^ to boot, while no less than seven years later 

The lordship and bishopric of Melle. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 27 

this same imprisonment gave him an excuse for squeezing 
out of the Duke of Burgundy a sum of 18,000 crowns. 

Quitting Perrinet Gressart's castle, La Tremoille pro- 
ceeded to Bruges. Concerning the success of his mission 
to Duke Phihp ^ we know nothing. The only incident of 
this embassy which has come down to us is that the 
Dauphin's ambassador, when he left the city, carried 
away with him the wife of one of the citizens, who in the 
following year was clamouring to be restored to her 
husband.^ 

La Tremoille, nothing daunted by his failure to secure 
his first wife's inheritance, was now casting about for her 
wealthy successor. One of the most richly dowered 
ladies of the Dauphin's court was the beautiful Catherine 
de rile Bouchard, Countess of Tonnerre. She happened 
to be married already, but inconvenient husbands and 
wives were not difficult to get rid of in those days. Indeed, 
Catherine's husband, Pierre de Giac, had himself disposed 
of her predecessor in a manner almost too brutal to bear 
mention. True, Pierre de Giac was at this time the 
Dauphin's prime favourite, but that circumstance pre- 
sented no difficulty, for Charles was used to having his 
favourites forcibly removed ; and the removal of this 
one was probably facilitated by the connivance of the 
favourite's wife, and certainly by that of the Constable, 
Arthur de Richemont. The manner of its accomplish- 
ment was characteristic of that brutal age. 

Giac was with the Dauphin at his chateau of Issoudun, 
when, on the morning of February 8th, 1427, as he lay in 
bed with his wife, Catherine, the favourite was rudely 
awakened by a loud knocking at his door. " Who is 

1 John the Fearless had been murdered in 1419 on the Bridge of 
Montereau. 

2 E. Cosneau, " Le Conn6table de Richemont," 141, note 4. 



28 FROM THE CRUSADES 

there ? " he cried. " The Constable," was the reply. 
" Then I am a dead man," groaned Giac, who knew 
Richemont to be his enemy. The door was broken 
open and the favourite, clad only in nightgown and 
slippers, dragged out of the palace and placed on horse- 
back. Catherine the while had flown to her jewel chest, 
eager to secure it for La Tremoille, who was probably 
already her lover. Everything was done as quietly as 
possible for fear of rousing the Dauphin, who was strongly 
attached to his favourite. But Charles became aware of 
confusion in the palace, and inquired what was going 
forward. He was told that what was happening was for 
his good. 

Meanwhile, Giac had been hurried off to the chMeau of 
Dun-le-Roi, which belonged to Richemont's wife, the 
Duchesse de Guyenne, widow of the Dauphin Louis. 
Thence, after a mock trial, an executioner having been 
brought from Bourges, Giac was cast into the River 
Auron and drowned. Meanwhile, La Tremoille anxiously 
rode to and fro nearby, impatient for news that Catherine's 
husband had ceased to breathe. On hearing that his 
mistress was free, he rode to join her in her castle of Meun, 
where she was waiting to bestow upon him the jewels she 
had so carefully guarded from the cupidity of her husband's 
murderers. After spending some months together at 
Meun, La Tremoille and Catherine repaired to the former's 
chateau of Gen9ay in Poitou, where they were married on 
July 2nd. Their wedding, following so soon on Giac's 
death, caused some astonishment even among the 
Dauphin's unscrupulous courtiers, who thought that 
Catherine might have had the decency to wait a little 
longer before marrying her husband's murderer. 

As for the Dauphin himself, after he had recovered 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 29 

from his first indignation at his favourite's treatment, he 
easily consoled himself with his successor. This was 
an obscure person, one Camus de Vernet, knight of 
Beaulieu, who was no better than his predecessor, and 
who came to as untimely an end. 

After the assassination of Camus, which took place 
before the Dauphin's very eyes, La Tremoille persuaded 
the Constable to install him as Charles's chief favourite. 

Arthur de Richemont, one of the few disinterested 
barons of that day, despite the part he had played in 
Giac's assassination, was in many respects a fine figure. 
In astuteness and insight into character, however, he must 
have been deplorably lacking, or he would never have 
placed in a position of such power so rapacious a person 
as La Tremoille. 

The Dauphin was wiser than his Constable ; for, 
trembling to see Richemont confide in La Tremoille, 
Charles said : " You will repent it, for I know him better 
than you do." To this feeble remonstrance the Constable 
paid no heed ; but alas ! Charles's words proved only too 
true, and it was in his treatment of Richemont himself 
that La Tremoille first verified his Prince's prognostica- 
tion. The Dauphin was cowed into banishing the Con- 
stable from court and bestowing his governorship of 
Dauphine upon his rival. 

La Tremoille was now supreme ; as Councillor- 
Chamberlain, for six years he ruled ; and he was one of 
the most terrible scourges France has ever known ; never, 
not from Clovis to Charles X., have the national fortunes 
sunk so low as during that six years of La Tremoille's 
power. 

With half France, including the French capital, given 
up to the English, with an English army about to cross 



30 FROM THE CRUSADES 

the Loire to conquer the remaining half, La Tremoille's 
only thoughts were the filling of his private purse and the 
avenging of his private quarrels. 

For some years before he became the Dauphin's 
favourite he had been nothing more or less than the 
Grand Usurer of the kingdom. He was the first of those 
great tax-farmers, those leaches who, sucking the nation's 
life-blood, were to prey upon the national exchequer. 
And while in those terrible times the King went in tatters 
and brave soldiers of the Crown and disinterested leaders 
remained unpaid, for La Tremoille money was always 
forthcoming. In his private war with Richemont and his 
allies. La Tremoille, taken prisoner in the Castle of Gen9ay, 
insisted on the Dauphin paying his ransom to the tune of 
10,000 crowns. 

Soon, however, even while the Councillor-Chamberlain 
with havoc and with bloodshed was rending the fair 
realm of France, there appeared in more than one quarter 
of the kingdom signs of a new spirit which was ultimately 
to defeat La Tremoille and all his nefarious projects. 
The outrages of the barons and the invasion of a foreign 
foe gave birth among the oppressed and the conquered to 
a sentiment of nationality, which was even now revealing 
itself in different parts of the country : on the Loire, 
where the neighbouring towns were straining every nerve 
to succour the gallant citizens of Orleans besieged by the 
English ; in the Dauphin's own circle, where his mother- 
in-law, Yolande of Arragon, Duchess of Anjou, and Queen 
of Jerusalem and Sicily, one of the best and bravest 
women of her time, with political insight and pity for her 
persecuted country, was devising La Tremoille's fall ; 
and in distant Lorraine, whence a peasant maid at the 
behest of heavenly voices was setting forth to deliver France. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 31 

One isolated good deed, but that a purely negative and 
an unconsciously meritorious one, may be placed to La 
Tremoille's account : he offered no opposition to Joan of 
Arc's employment in the Dauphin's service, and dispatch 
to the relief of Orleans. 

Joan at her trial related that La Tremoille was present 
among the crowd of courtiers round the Dauphin in the 
castle of Chinon on that evening in March, 1429, when, 
clad in doublet and hose, with her hair cut round hke a 
boy's, the maid was ushered into her Prince's presence. 
A few days later, one morning after mass. La Tremoille 
with the Dauphin and the Duke of Alengon had a private 
interview with her. Then he heard her promise the 
Dauphin that the King of Heaven would do for Charles 
what He had done for his predecessors, and restore him 
to his father's dominions. 

After events prove that such a consummation was 
far from the Councillor-Chamberlain's desire. All he 
expected Joan to do was to restore French courage and 
initiative so far as to enable them to continue the conflict 
with the English. La Tremoille wished neither com- 
batant to be completely victorious ; but when Joan 
appeared, there seemed a danger that the English would 
establish their dominion throughout the land. It was to 
avert what would have been a personal catastrophe as 
well as a national disaster that La Tremoille received Joan 
and sent her with an army to relieve Orleans. 

But after her glorious victory at that city, followed by 
a month of marvellous successes in the Loire valley. La 
Tremoille, fearing lest Joan should cast the weight of 
conquest too strongly on his own, the French side, 
began to oppose her and her forward policy. The first 
conflict between the Maid and the Minister occurred 



32 FROM THE CRUSADES 

over the question of the Constable's restoration to 
power. 

During the Loire campaign, La Tremoille had held 
aloof from the army, keeping watch and ward over the 
Dauphin, jealous lest he should fall under the influence of 
some rival favourite, detaining the Prince in one of the 
Loire chateaux, most of the time in the great La Tremoille 
stronghold of Sully. During the Minister's absence, and 
directly contrary to his command, Arthur de Richemont, 
with a company of Breton troops, had been permitted to 
serve in the royal army, and to take part in the crowning 
victory of Pathay.^ No sooner was the battle won, than 
in their gladness and gratitude to the Constable for the 
aid he had generously granted them, Joan and the Duke 
of Alen9on solicited Richemont's recall. It is the 
unanimous opinion of expert historians, that had this 
request been granted, had the Dauphin's army made 
common cause with the troops which Richemont and his 
brother, the Duke of Brittany, could raise in western 
France, the English might speedily have been driven 
from the country. But La Tremoille was determined not 
to be reconciled with his rival ; and at his Minister's 
bidding, the Dauphin resolutely refused the Maid's 
request. 

It now became obvious that as long as La Tremoille 
remained in power the complete discomfiture of the 
English would be impossible. In the Dauphin's council 
there were now two parties and two policies : a forward 
policy advocated by Joan^ and Alen9on, her " fair Duke," 

1 June, 1429. For a picturesque account of the meeting of the Maid 
and the Constable, see Anatole France, " Joan of Arc," Eng. trans. I., 

364- 

2 Joan was seldom actually admitted to the councils of war. She 
had, therefore, to rely upon Alengon to advocate her views, which he 
did loyally 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 33 

as she called him ; and a temporising policy advocated 
by La Tremoille and his ally, the Dauphin's Chancellor, 
Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Reims. 

On one point the forward party won the day : they 
succeeded, possibly against the will of the Chancellor 
and the Chamberlain,^ in conducting the Dauphin to 
Reims for his coronation. But on the way to Reims the 
two parties were in constant conflict, in which Joan was 
generally worsted. The Maid was for storming the 
hostile cities which refused to admit the Dauphin's army 
within their gates ; but here for the most part, and 
notably at Auxerre and Troyes, La Tremoille imposed 
his more moderate policy, from which, as usual, he reaped 
personal advantage ; in the case of Auxerre, at any 
rate, the 2,000 crowns paid by the citizens in return 
for a promise not to storm the town were pocketed 
by the Minister. After the coronation dissensions 
between the parties broke out anew, Joan and " her 
fair Duke " and a powerful faction of the nobility were 
for marching straight on Paris ; La Tremoille, whom 
Charles at his crowning had created Count, wished to 
return to the south of the Loire and to negotiate with 
Burgundy. Now, as always, the Chamberlain had his 
private advantage in view ; through Burgundy's influence 
Georges wished to recover certain Burgundian lands, 
formerly belonging to him, which the Duke of Bedford 
had conquered and bestowed on La Tremoille 's younger 
brother, the Sieur de Jonvelle. In achieving the second 
part of his project the Minister was partially successful, 
and a truce for fifteen days, afterwards prolonged, was 
signed with Burgundy. But in the first of his designs 
he was thwarted by the English, who cut off the retreat 

1 This matter is obscure and has been much discussed. 
C.R. D 



34 FROM THE CRUSADES 

of the French towards the south. Thus, much against 
their will, Charles and La Tremoille were forced into the 
neighbourhood of Paris, where a series of skirmishes took 
place with the English, under the Duke of Bedford, who 
was Regent for the infant King, Henry VI. 

In one of these skirmishes at Crepy-en-Valois, France 
came near to being delivered from her oppressor, for 
La Tremoille, contrary to his custom of keeping out of 
action, mounted a charger richly caparisoned, and, lance 
in hand, rode into the heart of the melee. There, falling 
from his horse, he would have been slain had not some 
misguided Frenchman come to his aid. 

Still avoiding Paris, Charles, after Crepy, entered 
Compiegne.^ And there La Tremoille re-opened negotia- 
tions with Burgundy, attempting to detach him from the 
English alliance, by offering to make him master of 
Compiegne. But the citizens of the town refused to be 
handed over to the Duke. Then, rather than come to a 
rupture with Philip, La Tremoille carried out one of the 
most amazing pieces of diplomacy known in history : 
towards the end of August, Joan and " her fair Duke " 
had left Compiegne with the object of attacking Paris, 
of which city the English had appointed Philip governor ; 
after their departure La Tremoille and Charles seem to 
have promised Burgundy that the attack on Paris should 
not be seriously prosecuted, and on this condition the 
truce was renewed. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that the operations were 
somewhat desultory when, on September 8th, an attempt 
was made to storm the capital. In vain Joan, standing 
on a mound outside the St. Honore Gate, called on the 
citizens to surrender in Jesus' name, threatening, if they 

1 On August i8th, 1429. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 35 

yielded not before nightfall, to enter by force and put all 
to death without mercy. Joan knew nothing of the 
negotiations at Compiegne. But at nightfall, instead 
of, as she had hoped, entering triumphantly into Paris, 
the Maid lay wounded beneath the shelter of a breast- 
work, urging her men to fill up the moat with faggots 
and to storm the gates of the city. La Tremoille, however, 
was commanding the combatants to retreat. Joan 
refused to obey him, until her Duke sent for her, and even 
then, as two knights carried her off the field, she was 
murmuring, " In God's name, the city might have 
been taken," 

It did not accord with La Tremoille's purpose that 
Paris should be taken, or that Joan should win any more 
decisive victories. Therefore he persuaded Charles to 
refuse Alen9on's request that the Maid might be sent 
with him to cut off the base of the enemy's communications 
in Normandy, and he kept her in the Loire valley, where 
there was no chance of her being able to strike a decisive 
blow. Here, although but ill supported, Joan, by her 
heroism and persistence, succeeded in taking by storm 
the town of St. Pierre-le-Moustier, but she was repulsed 
at La Charite. 

Even such partial success was not to La Tremoille's 
liking. Therefore for some weeks in the spring of 1430, 
he detained the Maid with the King and himself in his 
castle of Sully. Many a time during those weary 
weeks of waiting must Joan have gazed regretfully from 
the towers of Sully up that great northern road leading 
to Paris and to those fields of battle, whither she longed 
to return. 

At length, in the last days of March, the Maid, with a 
small body of soldiers, was permitted to fare forth. 

D 2 



36 FROM THE CRUSADES 

La Tremoille's hopes of a compact with Burgundy had 
been finally disappointed by a renewal of the alliance 
between Duke Philip and England. And so Joan was 
left free to open that last campaign which was to end 
in her capture by the Burgundians outside the walls of 
Compiegne. 

There are those who do not hesitate to accuse La 
Tremoille of having planned the capture of the Maid. 
That at almost every turn he had thwarted her patriotic 
designs there is no doubt whatever, but that he deliber- 
ately betrayed her into the hands of the Burgundians 
has never been sufficiently proved. The Chamberlain's 
record is black enough without this charge being laid 
to his door. 

If from such a crime he may be exonerated there is, 
however, another offence towards the Maid, and one 
equally heinous, of which he must be accused. In the 
cruel indifference to Joan's fate displayed by the King 
and his council, we cannot fail to trace the influence of 
La TremxOille. During the year which elapsed between 
her capture at Compiegne in May, 1430, and her execution 
at Rouen in May, 143 1, not an effort was made for her 
deliverance. La Tremoille was then all powerful at 
court, and had he made the shghtest movement either 
diplomatic or mihtary for Joan's rescue he would doubt- 
less have been seconded by many among the King's 
nobles. But for the Chamberlain the Maid was nothing 
more than a kind of charm, a figure-head to encourage 
the army. And, Joan taken, any other charm would 
do equally well, a shepherd-boy with stigmata from the 
heaths of Gevaudan or a devout woman from La Rochelle, 
one of the Maid's own companions. 

Fortunately for France the years of La Tremoille's 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 37 

power were already numbered. His increasing arrogance 
and greed were raising against him among the French 
nobiUty a powerful party led by Queen Yolande, the 
Constable and the Constable's brother, John, Duke of 
Brittany. At the close of one of the Chamberlain's 
devastating private wars against Richemont, Queen 
Yolande negotiated a treaty by which La Tremoille was 
to deliver the town of Montargis to the Constable. But 
before the surrender of the town took place it fell into the 
hands of the English, and — so it was believed — with the 
connivance of the Chamberlain. 

So dastardly a deed brought to a head the hatred of 
the King's favourite. In the same year, 1431:, at the 
funeral of the Duchess of Brittany, which took place at 
Vannes, a plot was formed against La Tremoille's life. 
It took effect in the following June (1433), when the 
Chamberlain was with the King at Chinon, lodged in 
that very Coudray Tower which had sheltered Joan four 
years earlier. Admitted to the tower by night through 
a postern gate, four of the conspirators, among whom was 
La Tremoille's own nephew, Jean de Bueil,^ followed by 
some twenty men-at-arms, made their way to the 
Chamberlain's room. There, in the struggle which 
ensued. La Tremoille received a sword- thrust in the 
stomach ; but like the wicked of the Psalmist, " enclosed 
in his own fat," for he was a very barrel of a man, his 
" Falstafhan paunch " saved his life. And Jean de 
Bueil was content to carry him off a prisoner to the 
Chateau of Montresor. There he who had so often 
exacted an exorbitant ransom from others was him- 
self compelled to buy his liberty with 4,000 crowns 
and a promise to keep away from the King and from 

1 His father was La Tremoille's brother, the Sieur de Jonvelle. 



38 FROM THE CRUSADES 

affairs of state. The King's quarters at Chinon were 
almost opposite his favourite's, and, as at the time 
of Pierre de Giac's arrest, Charles was roused in the 
night by the sound of mailed feet and the clashing of 
arms. But once again it was not difficult to per- 
suade him that the disturbance augured nothing but 
good. And we cannot beHeve that Charles grieved 
at being rid of this monster who was devouring his 
kingdom. 

Queen Yolande had now no one to oppose her beneficent 
designs : she was able therefore to restore the Constable 
to power, to encourage Charles to adopt as his favourite 
her own son, Charles of Anjou, and to receive as his 
mistress the famous and fascinating Agnes Sorel. 

Under Angevin influence the King became a new man, 
displaying energy, prudence and courage, and appearing 
the precise contrary of that roi faineant who used, in 
La Tremoille's day, to skulk in some distant castle far 
removed from the enemy and the battlefield. 

Under the rule of this new Charles VII., resistance to 
the English was vigorously organised, Paris was taken, 
peace made with Burgundy, and the invaders driven 
back until they retained only the maritime provinces ; 
at the same time the power of the turbulent French 
barons was curbed, and that work of centralisation begun 
which was carried on and completed by Charles's great 
successors, Louis XL, Henry IV. and Louis XIV. 

Not without a struggle, however, was this great work 
inaugurated. On his vast domains in Poitou, Limousin, 
Anjou, Touraine and Berry, La Tremoille was still 
powerful ; Jean de Bueil's mercy — or was it his 
greed for the 4,000 crowns ransom ? — had left the 
monster's wings insufficiently clipped. His castles were 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 39 

centres of brigandage and sedition to which resorted all 
the discontented nobles of the realm. Here was hatched 
that wide-spreading revolt of the French barons known as 
" the Praguerie." ^ The immediate cause of this rising 
was the royal ordonnance issued in 1439, which summoned 
before the King's court all barons who in defiance of the 
King had arrogated to themselves the right to impose 
taxes in their dominions, who had appropriated the royal 
taxes or interfered with their collection. The ordonnance 
was clearly aimed against La Tremoille and his associates ; 
and it was the signal for their concerted movement 
against the Crown. 

The barons chose for their leader no less a per- 
sonage than the Dauphin, the King's own son, who 
later as Louis XL was to prove the most formidable foe 
to those ambitions of the nobility which he was now 
furthering. 

Louis demanded that the control of public affairs 
should be placed in his hands. To the standard of revolt 
which he raised at Blois in 1440, flocked not only barons 
but princes of the blood royal, among them Joan's 
" fair Duke," Alengon, while from Poitou La Tremoille 
wrote that he would command the forces of the rebels 
in that province. 

It seemed as if the fire of civil strife were about to be 
rekindled throughout the kingdom. But the promp- 
titude and vigour of the King and his Constable imme- 
diately quenched the flame. Rightly regarding La 
Tremoille's rising in Poitou as the focus of discontent, 
Charles and Richemont marched straight into that 
province, and in a few weeks from the raising of the rebel 

^ After the Hussite rebellion in Bohemia, which some time before 
had centred at Prague. 



40 FROM THE CRUSADES 

standard sedition was completely quelled, and the barons 
were summoned to appear before the King's court. 
Among the rebels there was one whom the King refused 
to see : La Tremoille he would not admit to his presence. 
But this wily baron, ever eager to safeguard his own 
interest, had obtained in writing from the Dauphin a 
promise of his support, and a guarantee that as long as 
he lived he should enjoy his pension and other revenues. 
In accordance with this undertaking Louis refused to 
submit to his royal father unless the King agreed to 
pardon La Tremoille. Charles, however, refused to 
grant his son's demand. " Then I shall go back with 
the rebels," said Louis. " The doors are open to you," 
replied the King, " and if they are not wide enough, I 
will cause some hundred feet of the wall to be broken 
down so that you may pass through at your will." 
Charles's firmness won the day, and reduced all the 
revolted barons to submission. 

As long as La Tremoille lived, however, Poitou con- 
tinued a centre of discontent. In 1442, Charles was 
compelled again to proceed in person against his former 
favourite, and to capture several of his strongholds. 
Nevertheless, the Chamberlain continued his old work, 
and, in 1446, an action was brought against him in the 
King's court for spoliation and homicide. Yet, but a 
short time afterwards, in March that year, when the new 
Duke of Brittany, Francis I., came to render homage 
to King Charles, we find La TremoiUe appearing once 
more at court in all the state of his high ofi&ce of Councillor- 
Chamberlain. In the following May, a pardon for all 
past offences, which fifteen years earlier he had wrested 
from his docile master, was registered among the royal 
charters. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 41 

But possibly by that time the culprit was already 
beyond the reach of any human pardon, for on the 
6th of that month La Tremoille expired in his castle of 
Sully, where he was buried ; and France was delivered 
from one of the most terrible of her oppressors. 



42 FROM THE CRUSADES 



CHAPTER in 

TWO LOYAL SERVANTS OF KING LOUIS XI 

LOUIS DE LA TREMOILLE, DIED I481. 
GEORGES DE LA TREMOILLE, SEIGNEUR DE CRAON, DIED I483. 

Later La Tremoilles were hardly proud of their notori- 
ous ancestor. From the recesses of the family cupboard, 
down through succeeding ages, the bloated features of 
the Councillor-Chamberlain, " that toper, that barrel 
of a man." grinning like an ogre, haunted his posterity. 
His very physical semblance was abhorred, and when- 
ever one of his descendants began to display a tendency 
to his forbear's corpulence it was striven against by 
violent exercises worthy of a mediaeval Sandow. 

Fortunately for France and for the La Tremoilles, 
while the Chamberlain's physical features reproduced 
themselves in his sons, his grandsons, and even his great- 
grandson, this was not the case with his character ; 
and it is only in his remote descendant, Catherine 
de Medicis,^ in her unscrupulous egoism and in her 
disruptive policy, that Georges' moral defects were 
continued. Meanwhile, for the sins of their father and 
grandfather. La Tremoilles were striving to atone by 
the loyalty and courage with which they served the 
French crown and the French nation. 

The Chamberlain's two sons — Louis, and especially 

1 See genealogical table, p. 43, n. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 43 

his second son, a second Georges, the famous Seigneur 
de Craon — as loyal servants of King Louis XL did their 
best to destroy their father's wicked work, and out of 
that chaos for which he was largely responsible, to create 
a new French nation, the most compact, the most har- 
monious, and the most united in Europe. 

When the Councillor-Chamberlain died, his wife 
Catherine was still living. She resided in her lordly 
castle of He Bouchart. And there, though her sons 
were well past the age when boys were accustomed 
to escape from their mother's control, she kept them 
in tutelage, expecting them to obey a poor relation, 
one Pean de la Vallee, whom she had set over her house- 
hold. Louis and Georges, already chafing beneath the 
maternal yoke, absolutely refused submission to their 
mother's steward, who by his malgracieux treatment 
of the youths drove them to flee from He Bouchart, 
Louis to his chateau of Bommiers in Berry, Georges to 
the court of Duke Philip at Brussels. Thence, after a 



Genealogical Table showing the Descent of Catherine de 
Medicis from Georges de La Tremoille. 

Georges de La Tremoille 



Louis L Georges, Louise m. Bertrand VL, Comte d'Auvergne 
Seigneur et de Boulogne, grandson of 

de Craon Marie d'Auvergne, Jeanne 

d'Auvergne's cousin. 

Jean de La Tour, Comte d'Auvergne, in. 
I Jeanne de Bourbon. 

Madeleine de La Tour, m. (Jan., 1518) Lorenzo 
di Medici, Duke of 
Urbino. 

Catherine de Medicis. 



44 l^ROM THE CRUSADES 

while, Georges was induced to return to lie Bouchart by 
his mother's promise to marry him to a wealthy heiress, 
the daughter of the Seneschal of Normandy. On inquiry, 
however, the conditions of this marriage proved to be 
less advantageous than the young Seigneur de Craon 
had believed. Still, he stayed on at his mother's castle, 
apparently plotting against her steward, for, at a hunting 
party in 1458, Georges took Pean prisoner and carried 
him off to Burgundy. There, on the steward's promising 
to break off all relations with the Countess, Craon set him 
at liberty. But no sooner was Pean free than he cited his 
captor to appear and answer for his violence before the 
chief magistrate of Touraine at Chinon. Georges, how- 
ever, pleading ill-health as a reason for his non-appearance, 
appealed to the King to pardon him ; and in this appeal 
he was supported by his mother, who may have grown 
as tired of her old favourite as many years previously she 
had done of her first husband. Charles VII. granted 
the pardon. And in the document which awarded 
it may be read all the incidents of the Seigneur 
de Craon's quarrel with his mother's steward, related, 
it must be remembered, entirely from Craon's point 
of view. 

Like his great contemporary, the historian, Philippe de 
Commines, Georges de Craon having first served the 
Dukes of Burgundy, Philip the Good and his son Charles 
the Rash, transferred his allegiance to their mortal 
enemy, the King of France, Louis XL, who succeeded 
to the throne in 1461. 

For nine years, from 1468 till 1477, Craon, alike in the 
council-chamber and on the battle-field, was one of 
King Louis' most effective instruments in that long struggle 
with Duke Charles of Burgundy, whose defeat and death 




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ALL THAT REMAINS OF THE CASTLE OF L' ILE BOUCHART 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 45 

at the battle of Nancy was to be one of the chief corner- 
stones in the building of modern France. 

It was during the sack of Liege, in 1468, that Craon 
and King Louis met and came to terms. The King 
shortly before, having gone to Peronne to confer with 
his enemy, had there been taken prisoner and only released 
in exchange for a promise to aid Burgundy in besieging 
the town of Liege. At this siege Craon was present in 
command of a Burgundian company and charged with 
defending the outposts. In this capacity he gallantly 
repulsed a night sortie, pursuing the besieged within 
the gates and thus giving the signal for a general attack, 
which resulted in the capture of the city. 

Struck with admiration of La Tremoille's prowess, 
Louis determined to win him for his own service. What 
means he employed, whether he offered bribes in the form 
of high office and rich lands, or whether he relied solely 
on his own magnetic personality and power of persuasion 
we do not knov/. At any rate, he induced Georges de 
Craon to forsake the Duke ; and straightway the Seigneur 
was admitted to the King's Council and created Lord 
High Chamberlain. 

More a conflict of keen wits than of weapons of war 
was this duel between France and Burgundy. The diminu- 
tive figure of Louis XL, his foxy face, with its hawk-like 
nose, its sly eyes and thin lips, suggest the diplomatist 
rather than the warrior. More than once a great army 
was discomfited by Louis' wiles. And Craon was almost 
as able a diplomatist as his master. La Tremoille was 
present at that mysterious interview on a bridge over 
the Somme, which resulted in the Treaty of Picquigny, 
when the sovereigns of England and France leered at 
one another through a barrier of lattice-work, and the 



46 FROM THE CRUSADES 

English King was induced, without striking a blow, to 
withdraw his lordly host from French territory. 

But the Seigneur deCraon's two most brilliant diplomatic 
achievements were the winning for France of two powerful 
allies, Rene 11.,^ Duke of Lorraine, and the Confederation 
of the Swiss Cantons. 

One of Duke Charles's ambitious projects was the 
conquest of Lorraine, which, extending as it did from 
Verdun on the north to Franche Comte on the south, cut 
his Burgundian possessions in two. Craon, who was 
then Governor of Champagne, was the Duke of Lorraine's 
neighbour. This gave him an opportunity of working on 
Rene's fears of Burgundian conquest, and on his hopes of 
French reward, and by these means of winning, in the 
year 1474, his alliance for Louis XL Then, in conjunction 
with Rene, Craon laid siege to Pierre Fort and captured 
this Burgundian stronghold, which was but five miles 
from the Lotharingian capital of Nancy. Duke Charles, 
however, retaliated by overrunning Lornaine and annexing 
it. Now it seemed as if Rene had done a foolish thing in 
throwing in his lot with the French King. But Rene's 
day of vengeance was to come. 

Meanwhile, Craon had been contracting that other 
alliance, with the Swiss Cantons. Liberally bribed with 
French gold, the Swiss entered into a covenant with King 
Louis for ten years, and in the autumn of this same year, 
1474, invaded the Burgundian province of Franche Comte, 
defeating the Burgundians at Hericourt and sacking 
Pontarlier. Two years later Charles, uniting all his 
forces against the Cantons, met the Swiss near Lake 
Neufchatel, where he suffered two serious defeats at 
their hands in the battles of Grandson and Morat. 

1 Reigned from 1473 — 1508. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 47 

Before Burgundy could recover from these disasters, 
Rene had begun to reconquer his duchy ; he had aheady 
recaptured Nancy and other fortresses when Charles led 
an army against him. On January 5th, 1477, beneath 
the walls of his capital, Rene at the head of a Swiss army 
inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Duke of Burgundy. 
Already the two alliances negotiated by the Sire de Craon 
had served their purpose : Lorraine was safe from 
Burgundian ambition and the power of Charles le 
Temeraire lay in the dust. 

At the close of the battle, the Duke himself was missing. 
His fate was uncertain ; and in the letter which the Sire 
de Craon despatched to his royal master, all he could tell 
was that Burgundy had suffered a crushing defeat. But 
that was good enough for Louis ; whether Charles were 
alive or dead, these tidings filled the King with exaltation. 
And straightway, by that royal post which he was the 
first to institute in France, he despatched to his Governor, 
Craon, the following letter : — 

" Monsieur le Comte, my friend, I have received your 
letters, and heard the good news they contain, for which 
I thank you with all my heart. Now is the time to employ 
all your five natural senses in order to put the duchy and 
county of Burgundy into my hands. And, if so be that 
the Duke of Burgundy is dead, then as Governor of 
Champagne, enter the said country with your army, and, 
as you love me dear, hold it for me. Among your men- 
at-arms keep order as if you were in Paris, and prove to 
the inhabitants that I intend to treat them as well as any 
of my subjects. 

" With regard to our goddaughter,^ I intend to conclude 
the marriage, which already I have negotiated, between 
her and my Lord the Dauphin. 

1 Mary, daughter of Charles the Rash, and his heiress, for he left no 
son. She afterwards married Maximilian of Austria, later Emperor. 



48 FROM THE CRUSADES 

" My lord Count, I do not wish you to enter the afore- 
said countries or to mention the above in the case that 
the Duke of Burgundy should be still living. And in this 
matter I trust to you to serve me. 

" Farewell. Written at Plessis-du Pare/ the 9th of 
January. 

Signed " Louis." ^ 

The messenger who bore this letter met upon the road 
another messenger from the Sire de Craon, who was 
travelling to the King with the news of his great enemy's 
death. For a whole day after the battle the Duke's fate 
was unknown. The engagement was fought on a Sunday, 
and it was not until the following Monday evening that 
there was brought to Duke Rene an Italian page who told 
how he had seen Burgundy fall. After a long search on 
the battlefield, the Duke's body was found. Though 
covered with wounds, it was not so defaced that it could 
not be recognised by his laundress, his valet, and his 
doctor. 

The Battle of Nancy marks the climax in the Seigneur 
de Craon's prosperity. After that victory there began 
to come upon him the physical and moral defects of his 
family. " The said Seigneur de Craon was an exceedingly 
fat man," writes Commines.^ And with his father's 
corpulence, Craon began to reveal a tendency to develop 
his father's vices. In the Duchy of Burgundy, where 
King Louis, after Nancy, had established him in command, 
La Tremoille permitted and possibly even perpetrated 
grandes -pilleries, while by arrogance and quarrelsomeness 
he alienated one of Louis' most powerful allies, the 

1 Doubtless Louis' favourite residence in Touraine, better known as 
Plessis-les-Tours. 

2 See " Archives d'un Serviteur de Louis XI.," pp. iv. and v. 
8 " M6moires," ed. Mich, et Poujoulat, Ser. I., Vol. iv., 145. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 49 

Prince of Orange. The Prince retaliated by raising a 
great part of the duchy against the French. Consequently 
after he had suffered a severe defeat at the Battle of Dole, 
Craon was deprived of the Burgundian command. 

After this disgrace La Tremoille retired from public 
Hfe. But he had learnt his lesson. On his estates in 
Barrois and Mayenne, where he spent the remnant of his 
days, he lived as a law-abiding vassal of the King, occupy- 
ing himself in good works and pious foundations. At his 
chateau of Craon in Mayenne he died in the year 1481. 

Llis domestic experiences were not unlike his father's, 
for Craon's consort, Marie de Montauban, Hke his father's 
first wife, Jeanne, ended her hfe in prison. Accused 
of betraying her husband and even of plotting with 
one of her lovers to poison him, Marie was con- 
demned by order of Louis XL to perpetual imprisonment. 
She died without children ; and her husband bequeathed 
all his vast estates to his elder brother, Louis. 

Louis de La Tremoille, having served in the army of 
Charles VIL against the Enghsh, on the accession of 
Louis XL retired to his estates, where he lived the life of a 
pious country gentleman. By his loyalty and orderhness, 
Count Louis, although holding aloof from pubHc affairs, 
was a tower of strength to his sovereign in that part of 
France. Had La Tremoille with his great wealth and 
numerous vassals thrown in his lot with the discontented 
barons, that Mad War which broke out some years after 
his death might have occurred earlier, and been less 
worthy of its name. Yet La Tremoille had better 
reasons for quarrelling with his sovereign than many of 
his discontented neighbours. For the greater part of the 
vast inheritance, the estates of Talmond and of Thouars, 
which should have come to him with his wife Marguerite 

C.R. E 



50 FROM THE CRUSADES 

d'Amboise^ had been seized by the King, who had bestowed 
them on his favourites. How by the persistence of Louis' 
famous son, Count Louis H., these estates were regained 
and united to the family dominions is another story which 
shall be told in the following chapter. 

1 The daughter cf Louis, Vicomte d'Amboise. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 51 



CHAPTER IV 

LA TREMOILLES IN THE ITALIAN WARS 

LOUIS II., 1460 — 1525. CHARLES, I485 — 1515. 
FRANCIS, 1502 — 1542. 

While Craon was fighting the King's battles, in his 
brother's chateau of Bommiers, in Berry, was growing 
up a golden-haired, hazel-eyed boy, Louis, the son of 
Louis. This youth was to be the typical knight of 
chivalry, and by his lustrous deeds to atone for the 
family ogre's villainy. In the midst of the family picture 
Louis II. de La Tremoille stands out like a veritable 
demi-god. His well-knit frame, curly locks, aquiline 
nose, and decided chin are those of the verie parfU gentil 
knyghte. " The greatest captain of the world," his 
contemporaries called him, " the glory of his century," 
" the jewel of the French monarchy," and, like Bayard, 
" the knight without reproach." ^ 

Yet despite his heroic qualities Louis did not stand 
aloof from his comrades, proudly looking down on them 
from a pedestal of stern virtue. With his companions 
in arms he was hail-fellow-weU-met. And though, in 
writing, they may have lavished upon him the laudatory 
epithets we have quoted, in speech they called him by 
a nickname, suggested by his favourite oath Lavraye-corps- 

1 Bayard, however, was " the knight without fear and without 
reproach." 

EZ 



52 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Dieu, a pseudonym, somewhat profane, and a trifle 
lengthy, but doubtless familiarly contracted.^ 

The story of Louis' career was recorded by one of his 
own retainers, Jean Bouchet, a Poitiers lawyer, in a 
biography entitled " Le Panegyric du Chevalier sans 
Reproche,"^ 

The extravagant adulation of this book cannot fail 
to fill with misgiving the critical modern reader. And 
in order to gratify his judicial sense we have searched 
diligently but with no great success in the La Tremoille 
archives for the reverse side of Bouchet's flattering 
picture. Our hero's gravest failings, as revealed by these 
family documents, are a tendency to hold too loosely 
the strings of his well-filled purse and a passion for 
games of chance. With King Francis, his mother, 
Louise of Savoy, and his much-tried Consort, Queen 
Claude, La Tremoille lost heavily at cards. We may 
conclude, therefore, that when Louis' good wife, Gabrielle 
de Bourbon, is found pledging her jewels and silver plate, 
and converting her ornaments into golden crowns of the 
sun, it may not always have been to pay for the equipment 
of her husband and his retainers in expeditions of war. 

But when all is said these are no very serious offences ; 
card-playing for high stakes was common in those days, 
and excessive liberality may almost be regarded as a 
weakness becoming to a hero. 

Louis opened his career in the truly heroic manner 
by running away from home. In his childhood at 
Bommiers, with his younger brothers, Jean, Jacques 
and Georges, he had played at being a soldier. Trained 

1 See Brant6me, " OEuvres Completes," ed. Lalanne, II., 393 
et seq., where he cites the favourite oaths of great captains. The most 
curious is that of La Roche-du-Mayne, Teste Dieu pleine de reliques, 

2 Ed. Mich, et Pouj., Ser. I., Vol. IV., 405—478. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 53 

to run, to wrestle, to leap, to draw the bow and to wield 
the sling, he and his brethren loved to fight sham battles 
and engage in sham sieges. But soon of this world of 
make-believe Louis wearied. His first taste of real life 
came when he was permitted to ride forth with his 
father to hunt in the forests of Berry, and then sport so 
absorbed him that he would pass whole days without 
food or drink. 

But not even the excitement of the chase satisfied his 
craving for adventure. Stories of the King's court and 
of the band of noble youths whom Louis XL was gathering 
round the Dauphin and training for knightly deeds, 
penetrated even to remote Bommiers, and young La 
Tremoille longed to enter this school of chivalry. It was 
therefore a bitter disappointment when the Count, because 
of his quarrel with the King, refused his sovereign's 
demand that the young Louis should join the youthful 
band at court, those striplings whom the King was 
bringing up, not entirely for their own good but also as 
hostages for their Sires' loyalty. 

Shortly afterwards, during a long night in the forest, 
when, having lost his way on one of his hunting expedi- 
tions, Louis had ample time for meditation, he resolved 
that should his father continue to refuse to send him to 
court, he would take the matter into his own hands and 
set forth on his own account. 

The Count proving obdurate, the young Louis took 
with him as companion another noble youth, and secretly 
started. But his absence was soon discovered ; he was 
overtaken and ignominiously brought home. 

Barely had the truant returned when there reached 
Bommiers a second royal messenger, summoning the 
boy to court in tones so peremptory that this time his 



54 FROM THE CRUSADES 

father dared not disobey. So our hero, instead of 
being punished for his truancy, heard the welcome news 
that his dearest wish was to be gratified, A fortnight 
later, in high glee as we may imagine, clothed in rich 
attire and accompanied by the comrade of his former 
evasion, Louis set out on his adventures. 

Having been graciously welcomed at court by the King 
and by his uncle, the Seigneur de Craon, the young 
La Tremoille was admitted to the circle of noble youths, 
whom the King in his capacity of " universal guardian " 
had gathered round the Dauphin Charles. 

And there in courtly duties and martial exercises 
Louis' days passed pleasantly. A fear, however, began 
to haunt this fair stripling ; his figure began to fill out 
too rapidly, and there came upon him the horrid dread 
of his grandfather's bloated obesity ; wherefore, with 
renewed vigour, he engaged in all manner of violent 
exercises, subjecting himself to the severest discipline 
of diet, with the result that his persistent efforts were 
rewarded, the terrible fate of a resemblance to the family 
ogre was averted ; and Louis remained slim and agile 
to the end of his days. 

" A young shoot, plucked withal from an old Bur- 
gundian stock, yet growing to be a hedge of defence for 
the realm of France, and a rod wherewith to beat 
Burgundy," thus did the wily King, with a gleam in those 
foxy eyes of his, describe Count Louis' son. Thirteen 
years old was Louis when he came to court ; five years 
he passed in martial and courtly training. Then at 
eighteen he was at length permitted to engage in active 
service, and to accompany his uncle Craon to the conquest 
of Burgundy. 

So fair a youth was not destined to escape the darts 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 55 

of love, and Bouchet, in the long-winded fantastic 
manner of the mediaeval romance, spins out to an inter- 
minable length the story of his hero's first gallant adven- 
ture. But doubtless our readers will brook abridgment 
and rest satisfied to know that, as frequently happened 
in mediaeval story, the lady of Louis' desire was already 
the wife of another, and of the lover's most intimate 
friend ; that while Louis' Dulcinea returned his love, 
and while the lovers confessed their passion to one 
another, they successfully concealed it from the husband 
until one day their amorous glances betrayed them ; 
but that, still true to the heroic tenor of the popular 
tale, the husband, magnanimously relying upon the 
honour of his wife and friend, placed no obstacle in the 
way of their meeting ; and that thus trusted the lovers 
felt bound to subject their passion to their honour. 
Fortunately, such a stern trial of their virtue Louis and 
his lady had not long to endure, for soon the knight was 
summoned from court to Bommiers, where his father 
lay at the point of death. There, surrounded by his 
children. Count Louis passed away in the year 1483. 

Our hero was now Count of La Tremoille, the possessor 
of a great fortune and the lord of vast domains. And 
we hear nothing more of his romantic affection. Descend- 
ing rapidly from high-flown romance to mere material 
concerns, the Count's chief object now became to obtain 
from the King the restoration of those confiscated lands,^ 
that part of the Amboise inheritance which, as we have 
said, Louis XL had bestowed on his favourites.^ 

Accordingly, soon after his father's funeral, the Count 

1 Besides Thouars and Talmond, these estates included the lordship 
of Mauleon, the principalities of Berrie, He de Rhe, Marans, and other 
lands in Poitou and Saintonge. 

2 One of them was the historian, Philippe de Commines. 



56 FROM THE CRUSADES 

set forth with his brothers for the Touraine chateau of 
Plessis-les-Tours, where the King was residing. At 
Plessis, by the intervention of the Archbishop of Tours, 
La Tremoille's complaint was presented to Louis, who 
promised to restore the confiscated dominions. But 
death overtook him before he had time to fulfil his 
undertaking. It was left for King Louis' virile daughter, 
Anne de Beaujeu, who, during the minority of her 
brother, the thirteen-year-old Charles VIII. , practically 
ruled the kingdom, to fulfil her father's promise to La 
Tremoille. On September 30th, 1483, the rich estates of 
Amboise passed into Count Louis' possession. Hence- 
forth Louis and his descendants, as well as Counts of 
La Tremoille, were Viscounts of Thouars ^ and Princes of 
Talmond. 

The town of Thouars,^ on the Thouet, which now 
belonged to the La Tremoilles, had once, during the 
English occupation of western France, been a favourite 
residence of English kings. Henry II. built there a palace 
with two towers, la Tour au Prev6t and laTourGrenetiere,'^ 
of which the ruins may be seen to-day. The facade of 
the old palace, bearing the arms of the kings of England, 
was still standing at the Revolution. But the RepubHcan 
government insisted on the then occupant, Madame de 
Bournisseaux, removing the sign of royalty from its walls. 
After 1483, Thouars may be regarded as the La Tremoille 
capital in the west. In the ancient palace of English kings 
the La Tremoilles lived until the seventeenth century, 
when a duchess of La Tremoille built on the banks of the 
Thouet one of the most magnificent chateaux in France.* 

1 Thouars was to be created into a duchy by Charles IX. in 1563. 

2 In the department of Sevres. 
8 See illustration. 

^ See ante, VI., and post, 133 and 200. 




LA TOUR AU PREVOT 
Part of the old La Tr^moille chateau at Thouars, built by King Henry II of England 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 57 

Thouars was of great ecclesiastical importance, for 
within its walls lay buried St. Laon de Cursay, to 
whose shrine for many a year had flocked multitudes 
of the mentally afflicted. Marvellous miracles had been 
worked there, and, besides the church named after the 
saint and built over his tomb, numerous other sacred 
edifices had been erected. 

Count Louis and his pious wife, Gabrielle de Bourbon, 
richly endowed all these ecclesiastical foundations, while 
not far from their palace they built the fine church of 
Notre Dame. In a chapel of this church dedicated to 
St. Medard were to be buried the La Tremoilles of future 
generations. The fine tombs of Count Louis and his 
wife in the choir were destroyed at the Revolution ; but 
in the crypt the bodies of their descendants to this day 
rest in peace. ^ 

Anne de Beaujeu had inherited her father's shrewdness. 
Therefore she was quick to realise the importance of 
securing the services of so brilliant a knight as Louis de 
La Tremoille. She admitted him to the royal council, 
and proposed his marriage with Gabrielle de Bourbon, a 
princess of the blood royal, a descendant of St. Louis, 
and a daughter of the Count of Montpensier. Louis, 
completely cured of his earlier romantic attachment, 
gladly welcomed Anne de Beaujeu's proposal, and when 
he saw Gabrielle's portrait, he became still more eager for 
the match. To this ardent lover's disappointment, 
Madame de Beaujeu refused to permit him to conduct 
his wooing in person. A gentleman of the court was 
charged to journey into Auvergne, to the castle of Mont- 
pensier, where the lady dwelt, and to bear a letter 

1 The late Duke, Louis Charles de La Tremoille, however, was 
interred at Serrant, 



58 FROM THE CRUSADES 

proposing the marriage. But Louis, determined to 
circumvent Madame 's prudent designs, like a true knight- 
errant disguising himself as one of the messenger's 
retainers, accompanied him to Auvergne. There he 
penetrated into the Montpensier chateau and himself 
presented the letter. Then for his pains the masquerading 
suitor was fully rewarded by hearing Mdlle. de Mont- 
pensier say as she read the missive, that though she had 
never seen the Comte de La Tremoille, his fame was so 
fair, that she would esteem herself happy in becoming his 
wife. 

Gabrielle, as may be imagined, was only flattered when 
she discovered the trick her gallant had played her. The 
course of their love ran smooth, and, on July 28th, 1484, 
at the castle of Escolles in Auvergne, they were married. 

Bouchet in his biography of La Tremoille draws a 
striking picture of Countess Gabrielle, representing her as 
a fine type of the cultured Frenchwoman in austere pre- 
Renaissance days, before the Italian wars had introduced 
into French chateaux Italian luxury and freedom. 

Unlike her husband. Dame Gabrielle had literary tastes. 
She was even the author of treatises, the solemn tenor of 
which is betokened by such titles as le Chasteait de Sainct 
Esprit, r Instruction des Jeunes Filles, and le Viateur. 
These works the excellent Bouchet found to be so well 
written, that he had difficulty in believing they were by a 
woman— i.e., until he recollected that Madame Gabrielle 
had had the good sense to appeal to his sound judgment 
and that of other members of the superior sex for advice 
as to their composition. For Madame Gabrielle knew her 
place as a mediaeval woman. She recognised the limits 
that men set to her poor feminine intelligence ; and, 
though a devout Christian, she forbore to inquire too 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 59 

closely into the mysteries of religion, exercising a discre- 
tion which the good Bouchet highly commends. For the 
Poitiers lawyer the Countess was an ideal woman ; and 
in terms of the highest praise, he recounts how she used 
to spend her day. Having paid her devotions, she passed 
most of her time in embroidery and other domestic 
avocations, surrounded by her numerous ladies, who all 
belonged to noble houses. Then for a space she would 
withdraw into the privacy of her book-lined closet to read 
some history or moral discourse, or herself compose one 
of her pious treatises. 

Dame Gabrielle's love of letters was inherited by her 
son Charles, Prince de Talmond, born the year after his 
parents' marriage, and in early years the author of elegant 
epistles and rondeaux. If in mind Prince Charles 
resembled his mother, in physique he was a true La 
Tremoille. And in his case not the severest discipline or 
the most violent exercise succeeded in counteracting the 
family corpulence : had death not cut short his career 
he would probably have become as fat as his great- 
grandfather. 

But we are anticipating. We must return to a time 
before so dark a destiny threatened the Prince, when he 
was but an infant in the cradle. In 1485 a number of dis- 
contented nobles, led by the King's cousin, Louis Due 
d'Orleans, who aimed at replacing Anne de Beaujeu in the 
Regency of the realm, rose in rebellion, and waged another 
mad war. The revolt had lasted but a few months, 
when, being utterly worsted, the rebels laid down their 
arms. Shortly afterwards, however, the malcontents 
formed a new league in which they included Maximilian, 
Archduke of Austria. War broke out again in 1487. It 
was waged chiefly in Brittany, where Nantes obstinately 



6o FROM THE CRUSADES 

held out against the forces of the French crown. This 
check before Nantes induced Madame de Beaujeu, on 
March nth, 1487, to send into the rebellious province 
another army, finely equipped, and supported by an 
excellent body of cavalry. This force she placed under 
La Tremoille's command. Count Louis was totally 
lacking in experience of military leadership. Yet by 
brilliant success, he fully justified the Regent's choice. 
Having taken the town of Fougeres, Louis attacked the 
rebels in the open field, and, at St. Aubin-du-Cormier, 
charging in perfect order but with Frankish fury 
[francisque fureur), his troops routed the malcontents, 
taking Louis d'Orleans himself prisoner. 

The victory of St. Aubin-du-Cormier ended the civil 
war. La Tremoille was now in high favour at court. 
Charles VHL, who had attained his majority and taken 
the government into his own hands, appointed Louis to 
be one of his chamberlains, and as a reward for his conduct 
of the Breton campaign bestowed upon his cJier et feal 
cousin the captaincy of Fougeres, with a pension of 
2,000 livres tournois. Other offices and emoluments were 
to follow. 

Two years later, when there was a prospect of war with 
England, the King appointed Louis lieutenant-general 
in the provinces of Poitou, Saintonge, Angoumois, Anjou, 
and in the marches of Brittany. But the war came to 
nothing, for Henry VH., like his predecessor, Edward IV., 
was bought off by the French King, and withdrew his 
army without doing more than lay siege to Boulogne.^ 

It was not in battle against England that La Tremoille 
was to win his laurels. By this time Charles's attention 
was being attracted elsewhere. The King had persuaded 

^ This agreement is known as the Treaty of Estaples, 1492. 



L.PEJLA T:R^Eyy\01L.LE 




IGirandon, Photo 



LOUIS II, COMTE DE LA TREMOILLE 
From a portrait by Ghirlandajo, at Chantilly 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 6i 

himself that, through his grandmother, Marie d'Anjou, he 
had a right to the crown of Naples ; and there was coming 
upon him that passion for Italian conquest which for 
half a century was to obsess French sovereigns. 

Among all the turbulent princes of Italy none was 
more ambitious than Ludovico Sforza of Milan, usually 
known as // Moro, and one of the most striking figures of 
the Renaissance. In this year, 1492, Ludovico fanned 
Charles's ambition by sending to his court an embassy 
instructed to encourage the King to assert his claim to 
the Neapolitan kingdom. 

What were the precise proposals made by the 
ambassadors is uncertain, but it is perfectly clear that 
their motive was to divert Charles in his proposed Itahan 
expedition from any enterprise against the Duchy of 
Milan. Through his kinswoman, Valentine Visconti, 
daughter of the Duke of Milan, the King might possibly 
have laid claim to that duchy ^ ; but on Milan Ludovico 
himself had designs. He had already usurped the 
government and thrust himself into the position of 
Regent for his nephew, the Duke Galeazzo, whom he 
had cast into prison. Now Galeazzo's father-in-law was 
the King of Naples, and Sforza's design was, by bringing 
King Charles against the Neapolitan kingdom, to prevent 
Naples from intervening on his son-in-law's behalf in 
Milan. The scheme was successful. And, when in 
1494, Charles invaded Italy, it was against Naples alone 
that his arms were directed. Milan's turn was to come 
later. 

In the previous year, if we may believe Jean Bouchet, 
La Tremoille had been despatched on a mission to Pope 

1 Eventually Charles VIII. 's cousin, and successor, Louis XII., who 
was directly descended from Valentine, did claim it. 



62 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Alexander VI., whose alliance the King eagerly coveted. 
No other authorities,^ however, mention Louis as one of 
the ambassadors to Rome. The Count we know was 
appointed lieutenant-general in the King's army. And 
it seems likely that La Tremoille accompanied Charles 
when, in August, 1494, he crossed the Alps by the 
Mont Genevre. 

There is, likewise, every reason to believe that Count 
Louis participated in that crescendo of marvels, that 
march of the Northerners, tramping over the ancient 
Italian roads lying white in the autumn dust, from Pa via 
to Florence, from Florence to Rome, and from Rome to 
Naples. 

That La Tremoille was with the King at the famous 
capture of Fort San Giovanni, which laid Naples at the 
feet of the French, there is no doubt. For to Count Louis 
redounded all the honours of that glorious day. 

With the true instinct of a successful commander 
Louis was always careful for the physical condition of 
his soldiers. And on the morning of the attack on San 
Giovanni, at his own expense, he had the gunners served 
with wine. The cannonading lasted four hours, at the 
end of which time the Count, at the head of three com- 
panies, led the assault and was the first to set foot within 
the walls of the town. No sooner, at the head of his 
first company, had he planted his standard in the breach 
than it was seen to float from another which had been 
simultaneously effected by the second company. So 
great was the " Frankish fury " that in the space of an 
hour the town lay at the invader's mercy. Then, crossing 
the Liris and threatening the enemy on the flank and 

1 See Delaborde, " I'Expedition de Charles VIII.," 322, according 
to whom the ambassadors were d'Aubigny, Perron de Baschi, President 
Matheron, and Bidan, superintendent of finances. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 63 

rear, Charles compelled the Neapolitan army to retreat 
to Capua, while he, on February 22nd, entered Naples. 

Of the spoils of the Neapolitan kingdom, which Charles 
distributed among the nobles of his army, La Tremoille 
appears to have received his share. But, once the 
plundering over, the French King and his generals were 
anxious to return to their native land. Like their 
country-woman of a later date, who, when she gazed on 
the blue waters of the Bay of Naples, longed for the mud 
of her natal Rue du Bac, Charles's nobles beneath those 
sunny skies longed to be back among the clouds and 
mists of their northern fatherland. Moreover, the 
King's allies were turning against him. Sforza, having 
secured for himself the Duchy of Milan, ^ was uniting in 
a league against the French, Venice, the Pope, the 
Emperor, Ferdinand of Arragon and Isabella of Castile. 

Threatened with isolation in a hostile country, King 
Charles began to prepare for a return to his base of 
operations. In Naples he stayed only long enough to 
make a triumphal entry on May 12th, and to install the 
Comte de Montpensier, La Tremoille's brother-in-law, 
as his viceroy. Then, a week later, Louis with the King 
and his army turned his steps northward. The progress 
of the French was rapid ; entering Rome, whence the 
Pope had fled, on June ist, on the 13th they were at 
Sienna, on the 23rd at Pisa. At Poggibonsi, Charles 
gave audience to Savonarola, to whom he confessed, 
and from whose hands he received the Eucharist. 

North of Pisa, at Sarzana, the invaders were confronted 
by a perplexing alternative : whether to take the coast 
road winding along the Gulf of Genoa or, marching north 
by way of Parma and Piacenza, to cross the Apennines 

1 Galeazzo had died in prison. 



64 FROM THE CRUSADES 

into the Lombard plain. Both roads were equally 
difficult for a large army encumbered with a train of 
heavy artillery : the coast road, as travellers by train from 
Genoa to Florence will recollect, is bounded on the one 
hand by the sea, and on the other by high mountains ; 
the inland road ran over the precipitous peaks and 
through the narrow gorges of the Apennines ; in both 
directions the King had good reason to believe a hostile 
army awaited him. Rather than fall into the enemy's 
hands between the sea and the mountains, Charles 
elected to cross the Apennines. And it was this deci- 
sion which gave La Tremoille the opportunity of per- 
forming the most glorious of all his exploits. The ascent 
was made from Sarzana, not far from the famous 
marble quarries of Carrara, in that wild, picturesque 
country with which Andrew Wilson's landscapes have 
rendered us so familiar. But as they neared the higher 
peaks of the Apennines, covered with dense forests, 
the French commanders were met by an almost in- 
superable difficulty : how to convey over these precipi- 
tous mountains their train of fourteen huge cannon, each 
of which was usually drawn by thirty-five horses. In 
this dilemma the Swiss came to their rescue. These 
mercenaries by plundering a captured town in violation 
of the King's command had fallen into disfavour. Being 
anxious to reinstate themselves in their employer's good 
graces, they proposed to harness themselves to the guns 
and to drag them over the mountain. Their offer was 
eagerly accepted. 

Now, while the master-gunner, Jean de la Grange, 
arranged the technicalities of this tremendous under- 
taking, it was La Tremoille who supervised its execution. 
And to him is chiefly due the perfect success of this 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 65 

Herculean enterprise, the transport of fourteen enormous 
cannon over a pathless mountain in the scorching July 
sun. To prepare a way for the guns to pass, trees had 
to be cut down, rocks exploded, and the ground levelled. 
In all these works Count Louis personally took part. 
Clad only in doublet and hose, he worked in harness side 
by side with the Swiss, and with his own hand bore over 
the mountain helmets full of heavy cannon-balls. All 
the while with characteristic French patience and cheer- 
fulness he was encouraging the soldiers by offering rewards 
to those who should first drag their gun to the summit, 
and now, as at San Giovanni, providing wine with which 
to quench the men's parching thirst. Thus encouraged 
by their heroic captain, and inspirited by the martial 
music of trumpet, fife and drum, inciting one another to 
new efforts by those curious cries which their descendants 
even to-day call over the Alpine valleys, the Swiss at 
length succeeded in dragging up to the top of the mountain 
all the fourteen cannon. Then came the descent, which 
was even more difficult than the ascent had been. For 
the guns were allowed to go down by their own weight ; 
and the Swiss, roped to the backs of them to steady 
their descent, were in danger of being carried away by 
the impetus of the artillery. To La Tremoille's care- 
fulness it was mainly due that during this dangerous 
business not one life was lost. And at the end of two 
days, the Count, burnt to a blackamoor by the sun, 
triumphantly told the King that his artillery train had 
crossed the mountains and lay safe on the boulder-strewn 
bank of the River Taro. 

Charles was overjoyed ; and to his indomitable general 
the words with which the King welcomed these tidings 
must have been highly gratifying : " To-day, my cousin," 

c.R. F 



66 FROM THE CRUSADES 

said the King, " at the risk of your own person, which 
you are very ready to hazard in the service of me and 
mine, you have accomphshed more than Hannibal of 
Carthage, or JuHus C^sar. And I promise you that 
when I see you again in France such rewards shall be 
bestowed upon you as shall inspire others with a wish 
to serve me." 

La Tremoille, with a noble knight's true modesty, 
repHed : " Sire, I regret that my mind and body cannot 
better serve you ; no other reward do I desire than your 
grace and goodwill." ^ 

But the invaders had not yet overcome all their 
difficulties. And before they could cross the Alps they 
had to force their way through the enemy's army at 
Fornovo, where, on July 5th, La Tremoille commanded 
the rearguard, which appears to have borne the brunt of 
the fighting. Immediately on his return to France, 
Charles, remembering his promise, appointed his 
brilliant general High Chamberlain.- 

Two years and a half later, on April 7th, 1498, the 
King died childless, leaving as his heir his cousin Louis, 
Duke of Orleans, whom La Tremoille had taken prisoner 
at St. Aubin-du-Cormier. 

The accession to the throne of King Louis XH., the 
Count's sometime prisoner naturally filled La Tremoille 
with misgiving. But the new sovereign prudently 
announced that the King of France did not intend to 
avenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans. And with 
magnanimity, mingled no doubt with shrewdness, 
Louis not only confirmed La Tremoille in the possession 

1 Bouchet, 437. 

2 Premier Chambellan. For three generations La Tremoilles held 
this office: Georges under Charles VII., the Seigneur de Craon under 
Louis XL, and now Count Louis. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 67 

of those lands, offices and pensions which he had enjoyed 
under King Charles, but admitted him to his innermost 
councils. 

In the year of his accession two problems perplexed 
the King, and in the solution of both he employed 
La Tremoille. 

First, he was thinking of divorcing his wife, Jeanne 
de France, the plain, deformed little daughter of Louis XL 
Jeanne's story is a sad one. She had been the victim of her 
father's ambition and revenge. Usually royal marriages 
are planned for the continuity of a house ; the object of 
this one was the reverse, it was designed to extinguish 
the house of Orleans. At the time of Jeanne's marriage 
to Louis of Orleans the direct succession to the crown 
depended on the thinnest of threads, on the life of a six- 
year-old child, Louis XL's only son. The idea that an 
Orleans, a member of the bitterly hated younger branch 
of his family, should one day succeed him Louis could 
not tolerate. So to the head of the Orleans house, to 
his cousin Duke Louis, he gave to wife a princess whom 
he believed would have no children, his own poor little 
afflicted daughter, Jeanne. 

Heartily as he detested the marriage, Orleans was not 
then in a position to resist. Like everyone else at 
Louis XL's court, he must needs bow to that monarch's 
will. Whether the union was ever more than nominal 
was later to be debated : the husband declared it was not, 
the wife asserted the contrary. At any rate, when, after 
twenty-two years of at least nominal marriage, Orleans 
ascended the throne as Louis XII., he determined to 
untie the knot which bound him to Jeanne. 

Too close a blood relationship was the pretext the King 
pleaded when from the Pope, Alexander VI., he demanded 

F 2 



68 FROM THE CRUSADES 

a bill nullifying his marriage. But in reality two other 
considerations, both of them perfectly legitimate according 
to the standards of that age, compelled the King to take 
a step which was much more usual in those days than now : 
first, he desired an heir ; second, he longed by marriage 
with his predecessor's widow, Anne, the wealthy and 
powerful Duchess of Brittany, to unite to the French 
crown that last of the great independent feudal fiefs. 

The King, not unnaturally, hesitated to himself broach 
to Jeanne the subject of the dissolution of their union. 
But La Tremoille and the Queen had been friends ever 
since their childhood, when Jeanne was hving at the 
castle of Linieres, not far from Bommiers. So it was 
La Tremoille whom the King entrusted with the dis- 
agreeable task of making known to the Queen her royal 
husband's wishes. And Louis knew enough of his 
emissary to be sure that he would perform his graceless 
mission in the most graceful manner possible. The 
King was not mistaken. In his difficult interview with 
Jeanne, La Tremoille, showed himself at once diplomatic 
and delicate. He began by assuring the Queen that 
the King loved her beyond any woman in the world ; 
an assurance which was not unnecessary in face of the 
persistent neglect with which Louis had treated his wife 
throughout the long years of their marriage. Had the 
Queen been able to continue the royal line, said the 
ambassador, then her consort would have been only too 
happy to end his days in her sainted society. 

Apparently Jeanne received her lord's proposal with 
the resignation of a Griseldis. But, as La Tremoille was 
lea\dng her, she bade him entreat the King to take counsel 
and not to marry from motives of passion, of ambition, or 
of avarice. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 69 

But Jeanne's warning was too late a day. Already, 
as we have seen, Louis' mind was made up ; already the 
machinery for the dissolution of his marriage had been 
set working, and the King and the Pope had struck 
a bargain : in return for a papal bull appointing a 
commission to inquire into the validity of the royal 
union, the Pope's son, Caesare Borgia, was to receive a 
rich wife, Charlotte d'Albret, with the fat lands of the 
duchy of Valentinois.^ 

To save appearances a papal inquiry was necessary. 
It opened at Troyes, on August loth, 1498, in the house 
of the Dean of the Chapter. There, after much hesitation 
and anguish of heart, Madame Jeanne de France, the 
daughter and wife of kings, made up her mind to appear 
in order to contest Louis' assertion that their marriage 
had never been consummated. 

Nothing but a strong sense of religious duty could 
have induced the timid Jeanne, who, in her father's 
presence, out of sheer shyness, used to shrink behind 
her governess, to come forth from her retirement into 
the ignominous publicity of a court of law. But to her 
marriage was a sacrament, and to preserve its sanctity 
she consented even to reveal the tender hidden things of 
her inmost heart. 

Yet Jeanne's evidence, torn from her at the cost of so 
much suffering, was of no avail. The commission sat 
for four months, but without waiting for its decision the 
Pope signed the dispensation for Louis' marriage with 
Anne of Brittany. In that month of August the King, 
with the Duchess and La Tremoille, was at Etampes, 
signing, with Count Louis as guarantor and witness, a 

1 The marriage was celebrated at Blois in 1499 ; and it was the 
daughter of Csesare and Charlotte whom La Tr6moille, after Gabrielle's 
death, married for his second wife. 



70 FROM THE CRUSADES 

solemn promise to marry Anne within a year or to 
surrender to her the Breton towns of Nantes and 
Fougeres, of which La Tremoille was captain. 

Anne, for her part, by virtue of a clause in her marriage 
contract with Charles VIIL, which obhged her to marry 
the King of France, his successor, promised in writing 
to marry Louis as soon as the papal inquiry should be 
completed. Before the close of the year the marriage 
took place. And Jeanne retired to her appanage at 
Berry, where six years later she died in such odour of 
sanctity that some years later she was beatified. 

For his son's marriage with Charlotte d'Albret the Pope 
had paid a further price in promising his support to King 
Louis in the expedition he was then preparing against 
the Duchy of Milan. For Louis XIL shared his pre- 
decessor's passion for Italian conquest. On his accession, 
Louis had assumed the titles of Duke of Milan and King 
of Sicily. But, as grandson of the Milanese princess, 
Valentine Visconti, it was Milan rather than Naples that 
first attracted his ambition. 

Therefore, in 1499, the year after his accession, having 
isolated his prey by a formidable network of alliances, 
including the Pope, the King of England, the King and 
Queen of Spain, Scotland, Portugal, Venice, Hungary, 
Bohemia, Switzerland and even the Empire, Louis 
despatched an expedition against Milan under the leader- 
ship of Trivulzio, a Milanese exile. La Tremoille would 
appear to have been a more natural commander. But 
it now became obvious that there was some influence 
at court working against him. It cannot have been the 
King's influence, for Louis XIL, as we have seen, had 
completely taken his sometime captor into his confidence. 
More probably it was the Queen's malevolence that caused 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 71 

Count Louis to be passed over, for the cold, vindictive 
Anne of Brittany had never forgiven him for having in 
earlier days besieged her good Breton towns and overrun 
her duchy. Not under La Tremoille, therefore, but under 
Trivulzio, the French army crossed the Alps. Yet, 
although La Tremoille did not take part in this expedition, 
we must follow it briefly in order to understand the 
Count's subsequent doings. 

Against the invading force of the French King, leagued 
with all the great Continental powers, the Duke of Milan 
felt he had no possible chance. He therefore decided to 
flee from his duchy, and, while raising a formidable army 
of mercenaries, to endeavour to break up the league of 
his enemies. The first member he succeeded in detaching 
was the Emperor Maximilian. Meanwhile, in September, 
1499, Trivulzio and the French, having overrun the 
greater part of the Milanese, were able to enter the city 
and buy out the Duke's garrison from the citadel. Towards 
the end of the month King Louis himself crossed the Alps 
to take possession of his conquest, and on October 6th 
made his solemn entry into Milan. Then, after spending 
a month in regulating the affairs of the duchy, he returned 
to France, leaving Trivulzio in supreme command. 

But the Italian's arrogance was so overbearing and his 
exactions so heavy, that the Milanese rose in revolt, and 
on February 3rd, 1500, Trivulzio, hearing that the fugitive 
Duke with an army of Swiss mercenaries was approaching 
the city, deemed it wise to withdraw with his army, leaving, 
however, a French garrison in the citadel. On February 
5th, Sforza re-entered Milan, greeted by enthusiastic 
cries of " Moro, Moro." But all his efforts to capture the 
citadel were unavailing ; so he must needs content him- 
self with taking the neighbouring town of Vigevano, 



72 FROM THE CRUSADES 

whence he advanced to Novara. There, on March 21st, 
he compelled the French to capitulate. 

By this time Trivulzio had made himself cordially 
disliked and distrusted by his companions in arms. And 
Louis was driven to the conclusion that, unless his 
Italian army were to be utterly routed, he must appoint a 
new and trusted general. No one was better fitted for 
such a responsible post than La Tremoille, and, disregard- 
ing all remonstrances, it was La Tremoille whom the 
King now chose to lead his reinforcements into Italy, 
and to join Trivulzio in command. 

On March 26th, 1500, with 500 men-at-arms and an 
excellent train of artillery, Count Louis joined hands 
with Trivulzio at Mortara, where, a few days later, he 
was further reinforced by 14,000 Swiss, bringing the 
number of his troops up to 30,000. 

In the almost incredibly brief interval of nine days, 
the Count converted Trivulzio's discontented and mutinous 
army into the finest force ever commanded by a French 
general for more than a century.^ Preceded by a banner, 
on which were painted a whip, a torch and a blood-stained 
sword, at the head of his lordly host La Tremoille, 
on April 5th, set forth for Novara. 

Before this town, on the banks of the Sesia, the Duke of 
Milan was encamped with a force in numbers slightly 
superior to that of his adversary, but in morale vastly 
inferior. For the Duke's army, consisting of Swiss, 
Germans, Burgundians and Italians, all clamouring for 
arrears of pay, was disunited and discontented. 

On the day after their departure from Mortara, La 
Tremoille and his men took up their position over against 
Sforza before Novara. For the two following days there 

^ Auton, " Chroniques," ed. Maulde la Claviere, 241 et seq. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 73 

was indecisive skirmishing. Meanwhile the troops on 
both sides, many of whom were compatriots, were 
fraternising. From their countrymen in the Count's 
service, the Duke's Burgundians, Swiss and Itahans were 
learning that against so excellently organised a force 
Sforza's disintegrated host had not the remotest chance 
of victory. Wherefore, during the night of April 7th, 
vast bodies of the Duke's soldiers slipped off, some to 
take refuge within the walls of the town, others to cross 
the Sesia and return to their native land. Consequently, 
when the Duke of Milan awoke in the morning it was to 
find that a great part of his army had melted away. 

On that day, which was April 8th, the French closely 
invested Novara. And then Sforza's Swiss, seeing their 
cause to be hopeless, opened negotiations with La 
Tremoille, demanding a safe conduct to their native land. 
But before the French general would accede to their 
request he demanded the Duke's surrender. Even to 
these mercenaries so open an act of treachery was odious. 
At first they hesitated ; and it was only after a whole 
day's bargaining that, on the 9th, they agreed not to 
resist their leader's capture, if, during their retreat, he 
should be discovered in their ranks. 

The events which followed are somewhat obscure. 
But it appears that La Tremoille, determined not to permit 
so valuable a prize to escape him, ordered the Swiss, as 
they withdrew, to defile singly beneath a pike held over 
their heads by the French soldiers. Seeing that some 
thousands of Swiss soldiers still remained in Novara, 
it may be imagined that the process was a somewhat 
lengthy one. After it had lasted three hours, there passed 
beneath the pike one with a careworn look and furtive 
glance, whose marked features, colossal height and 



74 FROM THE CRUSADES 

distinguished bearing were unmistakable — the Duke of 
Milan was recognised and arrested.^ 

Thus, for a second time within but a few years, had it 
fallen to La Tremoille's lot to capture the leader of a 
hostile army. And in the King's judgment Novara must 
surely have atoned for St. Aubin-du-Cormier. 

It was Count Louis himself who wrote a long letter to 
the King announcing the Duke of Milan's capture. 
Louis received the news at Lyons early one morning, 
before he was up. And at once he hastened to announce 
it to the Queen. " Madame," he cried, on entering 
Anne's chamber, " will you believe it, La Tremoille has 
taken Louis Sforza ! " But Anne refused to believe it, 
until Louis repeatedly assured her that it was certain, 
and that a sovereign of France never had a better or 
more loyal servant, or one more successful in his under- 
takings. 

Well might the King of France rejoice, for among all 
his enemies Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, was the 
most formidable. 

The husband of Beatrice d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara's 
brilliant and graceful daughter, who happily did not live 
to see her husband's ruin, Sforza was the patron of litera- 
ture and of art. To the brutal virility of a condottieri he 
united the taste and the learning of a polished gentleman 
and a refined scholar. 

There are those who consider that because Sforza 
brought the French into Italy he was a traitor to his 
native land. But such detractors forget that in those 
days Italy was but a geographical expression, that her 
numerous independent states were separate entities, and 

1 Bouchet says he was wearing the habit of a Franciscan friar : that 
he should have donned such a disguise is improbable, for it would only 
have rendered his striking personality more recognisable. 




[Giraudon, Photo 
From a portrait of the Milanese School now in the Louvre 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 75 

that when Sforza invited Charles VI H. to cross the Alps 
and attack Naples, he was merely opposing a hostile 
power. That the Duke of Milan was a usurper 
who had ousted his nephew, Galeazzo, from power 
no one can deny. And for this treachery La Tremoille's 
captive paid the penalty to the uttermost in long 
years of imprisonment and a miserable death in a 
foreign dungeon. 

Transported with joy at his enemy's capture, Louis 
wrote no less than three letters to La Tremoille, urging 
him to lose no time in sending his prisoner to France, 
and to neglect no precaution to prevent his escaping on 
the road. " For I have a marvellous desire to see him 
over here . . . and I shall never be at ease until I 
behold Ludovico on this side the mountains," ^ wrote 
Louis from Lyons. 

As soon as the King's commands were received, Sforza, 
who for the time being had been confined in the citadel 
of Novara, was placed in an iron cage covered with 
wood and taken first to Lyons that the King might 
behold his fallen foe, and thence to the castle of 
Lys-Saint-Georges in Berry, where he died eight years 
afterwards.^ 

Having conquered Milan, King Louis next proceeded 
against Naples. And in the plans made for the conquest 
of the Neapolitan kingdom. La Tremoille was treated 
just as he had been when the conquest of Milan had been 
undertaken. Now again he found himself passed over 
and replaced by Italians. This time the Queen's 
influence is perfectly obvious. There is no doubt that 
it was at her suggestion that the King detained Count 

1 " Chartier de Thouars," 32 and 33. 

2 There appears to be no authority for the tradition that he died in 
the chateau of Loches in Touraine. 



76 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Louis at home to guard the coast of Anne's duchy ^ 
against a possible EngHsh invasion. 

" At the instance of our very dear and greatly beloved 
companion " [notre tr^s chere et ires aimee compaigne), so 
runs the official document of La Tremoille's nomination,^ 
the King committed to his loyal servant's charge watch 
and ward over the Breton coasts in addition to the 
defence of those of Guyenne which he already exercised. 

But now again, as during the Milanese conquest, the 
Italian commanders having proved incompetent, the 
King was glad to supersede them by Frenchmen, one of 
whom was La Tremoille. 

It was in August, 1503, that for the third time Count 
Louis crossed the Alps into Italy. On the i8th of the 
month, the Pope, Alexander Borgia, died. And King 
Louis, hoping to secure the election to the papal chair 
of his minister. La Tremoille's uncle, Georges d'Amboise, 
and thinking that the presence of a French army near 
Rome might further this design, ordered the Count to 
linger round the Holy City instead of marching on Naples. 

La Tremoille had not been well when he left France, 
and the effect of the Italian heat of those summer months, 
aggravated, perhaps, by some disappointment at being 
withheld from active service, was not to improve his 
health. He grew rapidly worse until his doctor, des- 
pairing of his life, demanded his recall. Louis replaced 
the Count by his old enemy at Fornavo, Gonzaga, Marquis 
of Mantua, who, like many another Italian general in 
those wars, had gone over to the French. Gonzaga took 
the command, and La Tremoille regretfully returned to 
France. 

1 The Queen's duchy of Brittany was not formally united to the 
crown until after her death. 

^ " Les La Tremoille pendant cinq sifecles," II. 128 129 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 77 

Their general's illness was only the beginning of the 
French misfortunes. Gonzaga soon became unpopular 
with the troops and resigned, leaving the army leaderless, 
disunited and undisciplined, to be completely routed by 
the Spanish general, Gonzala/ 

Meanwhile, La Tremoille was in for a year's serious 
illness. The King grieved sorely over his indisposition, 
for the Count was one of the few at court who were ever 
ready to serve their sovereign without clamouring for a 
reward. Despite his disinterestedness, however, he was 
not to go entirely unrecompensed. On his recovery, 
the King appointed him governor of the rich province 
of Burgundy. This was a " fine estate and one eagerly 
desired by all good people." Yet the office was far from 
being a sinecure ; for as a frontier province Burgundy 
was constantly open to attack. The Mayor of Dijon 
welcoming the new Governor into his capital did 
not conceal how much was expected from him. The 
Burgundians looked to La Tremoille, he said, and to the 
renown of his victories to serve them as a rampart 
against the sudden movements of the industrious 
Flemings, the pertinacious Hainaulters, the pillaging 
Swiss, the greedy Germans, and all those who were 
envious of the frugality and the wealth of these bounti- 
fully gifted people. Burgundy was, indeed, the wealthiest 
of French provinces, and on that account there were few 
French nobles who could have been trusted to govern 
it. But La Tremoille, being totally devoid of avarice, 
appears to have kept his hands immaculate, " uncor- 
rupted," says Bouchet, " by gifts of gold or silver." 

Despite the cares of his new office, Louis still required 
the Count's services in Italy. And in 1507 we find him 

» On the Garigliano, December, 1503. 



78 FROM THE CRUSADES 

accompanying the King to suppress a revolt of Genoa 
against French rule. This done the King proceeded to 
Milan, and thither went with him three La Tremoilles, 
Count Louis, his son, Charles, Prince of Talmond, and 
his brother, Jean. 

Jean was the first of the La Tremoille cardinals. 
Having entered the Church in early years he rose rapidly, 
chiefly through his brother's influence, to be Bishop of 
Poitiers and Archbishop of Auch. He was a typical 
prince of the Church, and as great a pluralist as our own 
Cardinal Wolsey, for in addition to his bishopric and 
archbishopric he enjoyed the revenues of half the 
bishopric of Agen, of eight abbeys and of one priory. 
With an income of 50,000 livres he lived in great 
state with fifty horses in the stable, a magnificent train 
of falcons, and a master falconer, who was one of the 
most famous in his day and generation. 

Jean had been made a Cardinal by Julius H. in 1506. 
And in this year, 1507, he was on his way to Rome to do 
homage to the Pope. But at Milan he was stricken with 
fever and died. His body, having temporarily rested in 
a Franciscan church of the city where the Cardinal had 
been accustomed to hear mass, was eventually taken to 
France and buried at Thouars, in the church of Notre 
Dame. 

Twice again during the reign of Louis XH. was Count 
Louis to visit Italy, in 1509 and in 1513. In the former 
year the Count and his son, the Prince de Talmond, 
distinguished themselves at Agnadello, where the King 
defeated the Venetians. In 1513, once again in joint 
command with Trivulzio, La Tremoille led an unfortunate 
expedition against the members of the newly-formed 
Holy League, By a curious coincidence the chief 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 79 

engagement was fought on the scene of the Count's 
famous capture of Ludovico Sforza, outside the walls of 
Novara. But now the fortunes of war were reversed, 
and La Tremoille suffered defeat at the hands of the 
Swiss, whom formerly he had conquered. Having lost 
all their artillery and stores, Louis and his fellow com- 
mander were compelled to retreat hastily into France 
by the passes of Susa and Mont Cenis.^ 

In the previous year the French had lost Milan, and 
the last of King Louis' Italian campaigns had been fought. 
Not that he had relinquished his designs on Milan or 
on Naples, for he devoted the remainder of his reign 
to preparing a formidable expedition, the undertak- 
ing of which death compelled him to leave to his 
successor. 

After his defeat at Novara, La Tremoille hastened to 
his province of Burgundy, which had already been 
invaded by the victorious Swiss. Strengthened by 
imperial support, they were investing Dijon with an 
army of 60,000. Count Louis sent an urgent request 
to the King for reinforcements. But, as the English 
were at that time invading France on the north, no army 
was forthcoming, and La Tremoille was forced to buy 
off the invaders with a promise of 400,000 crowns.^ 

The news of this humiliating treaty was a great blow 
to the King, who was at first inclined to severely censure 
its author ; but, when it was represented to him what 
enormous odds were against his general, his common 
sense vanquished his chagrin and La Tremoille was 
forgiven. 

1 Bouchet exonerates his hero from any blame in this reverse, saying 
that the defeat resulted from Trivulzio's refusal to follow his colleague's 
advice. 

2 See Brantome " Les Grands Capitaines Fran9ais," ed. Lalanne, 
II., 393 ^t seq. 



8o FROM THE CRUSADES 

In the following year his old enemy, Queen Anne, 
having died, the Count, with a train of other distin- 
guished knights rode out of Abbeville to meet his 
sovereign's bride, Mary Tudor, and to escort her to her 
husband. The King survived his third marriage but a 
few months. In January, 1515, he died, leaving his 
throne and his Italian quarrels to his kinsman, Francis 
of Angouleme, Duke of Valois, 

One of the first acts of King Francis was to confirm 
La Tremoille in the possession of all his estates and 
offices. At the court of the new King, says Michelet, 
the veteran commanders. La Tremoille and Trivulzio, 
were like two pieces of old furniture which had served 
their turn.^ Yet Francis did not despise his " old 
furniture." And, when a few months after his succession, 
in August, 15 15, in pursuance of his predecessor's design, 
he led over the Alps an army more powerful than any 
yet raised in the wars. La Tremoille went with him. 
With the old Count were his son, Charles Prince de 
Talmond, and his grandson, Francis, who was but a 
boy of thirteen. 

King Francis was obviously bent on honouring the 
La Tremoilles, for it was to the wardship of his namesake, 
this boy of thirteen, that the King committed the first 
distinguished prisoner taken in the campaign, Prospero 
Colonna, whom Francis de La Tremoille conducted right 
across France to his Poitevin prison in the castle of 
Montegu.^ 

The boy's father and grandfather meanwhile were 
with the French army at Novara avenging Count Louis' 
defeat of two years earher, and winning back the lost 

1 Michelet, " Hist, de France an Seizifeme SiScle," Bk. I., Chap. XIII. 

2 Bran tome " OEuvres Completes " (ed. Lalanne), V. 146. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 8i 

artillery. Then the French encamped by the Roman 
road, ten miles from Milan city, close to the village of 
Marignano. 

There, on the afternoon of September 13th, as King 
Francis was in his tent trying on a new suit of German 
armour, he heard that the enemy's Swiss mercenaries 
had come out of Milan, and that in battle array some 
30,000 strong they were rapidly advancing to the 
attack. 

Of the two days' battle which followed accounts vary. 
During the hours of darkness which suspended the fighting, 
while their adversaries were refreshed by food and drink 
from Milan, the hungry French lay all night under arms. 
Having called for a glass of water, the young King found 
it mingled with gore. Thirsty, he retired to his rest 
beneath a gun-carriage, having first extinguished his 
fire so that unseen he might observe what his men were 
doing. Close beside him lay La Tremoille. The Prince 
de Talmond was in another part of the camp with his 
cousin, Constable Bourbon. 

With early dawn the struggle was renewed. It was, 
as Trivulzio called it, " a battle of giants," and long did 
the issue tremble in the balance. The tide turned in 
favour of the French when Alviano, the general of the 
Venetian Republic, the only Italian ally of France, came 
up with a body of horse. Alviano's arrival, like that of 
Bliicher at Waterloo, took the heart out of the enemy. 
Soon afterwards they retreated, leaving, so it is said, 
no less than half their number, 15,000, on the field. 

The French, too, had lost heavily. And Count 
Louis' son, Charles, Prince de Talmond, lay dying, 
wounded in sixty-two parts of the body.^ 

1 We quote Bouchet. 
C.R. G 



82 FROM THE CRUSADES 

It was the young King who took upon himself the 
terrible task of breaking to the Count that he must not 
hope for his son's recovery. Charles died thirty-six hours 
after the battle. 

Though grieving deeply over the death of his only son, 
La Tremoille, with characteristic devotion to duty, 
remained with the army. To the care of his grand- 
son's tutor, Regnaud de Moussy, he committed his 
son's body. Slowly and pompously it was conveyed 
through France to Thouars to its last resting-place 
in the church of Notre Dame by the side of Cardinal 
Jean. 

A messenger from her husband had borne to Gabrielle 
de Bourbon the sad tidings of her son's death. Despite 
the spiritual consolations of her nephew, the Bishop of 
Poitiers, who was with her at the time, Gabrielle was 
unable to practise those counsels of resignation she sent 
to her husband, and, sinking beneath the blow, she died 
of grief in the following year. 

Thus there passed away one of the finest types of old 
French feminity. Bouchet, whose literary tastes made 
him her favourite companion, describes her as a woman 
of few words, temperate,^ grave, magnanimous, and above 
all things, pious. Dignified and distant in public, among 
the ladies and gentlemen of her household, and those she 
knew well, she was always gracious and familiar, ready 
with kind words and wise counsel, but disliking scandalous 
and licentious talk. 

The death of the Prince de Talmond left as heir to the 
La Tremoille estates the young Francis, whose mother, 
Louise de Coetivy, was first cousin to the King of 

1 " Elle se contentoit de peu de viandes aux heures accoutu- 
m6es." 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 83 

France.^ The uncertain life of a boy of thirteen was but a 
slender thread on which to hang the hope of the perpetua- 
tion of the La Tremoille line. And it may have been 
primarily for the purpose of furnishing his family with 
another heir that Count Louis, despite his deep grief at 
Gabrielle's death, only a year afterwards took to himself 
another wife, Louise d'Albret, Duchess of Valentinois and 
only child of Caesare Borgia and Charlotte d'Albret.^ While 
the lately disconsolate widower was fifty-seven, his bride 
was but a girl of seventeen. The Count's friends expressed 
their amazement at his choosing a successor to the highly 
virtuous Gabrielle de Bourbon from the decadent Borgia 
house. Louis is said to have made the astounding reply, 
that it was precisely because Louise came of a stock 
the virtue of whose women had never been questioned, 
that he had chosen her. If tradition speak true, there was 
certainly no question about the virtue of the Borgia 
women : for one cannot question what does not exist. ^ 
But perhaps that was hardly the Count's meaning, ' 
Louis may have been closing his eyes to the Borgia family 
history, and thinking only of the maternal side of his 
wife's house, of the d'Albret women, who had on the 
whole, been beyond reproach. 

Both Louise's parents were dead at the time of her 
wedding. And apparently it was by the King's mother, 

1 John of Angouleme. 



Charles m. Louise of Savoy. Joan m. Charles de Coetivy, 

I I Comte de Taillebourg. 

Francis I, Louise de Coetivy m. Charles 

I de la Tremoille. 



Francis de la Tremoille. 



2 See ante, 69 and note. 



G a 



84 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Louise de Savoie, of whom Mdlle. d'Albret was a lady-in- 
waiting, that the marriage was arranged. After Gabrielle's 
death, Count Louis had been much at court, losing large 
sums of money at games of chance, and it may have been 
while playing at trictrac or oie that Madame de Savoie 
suggested to the Count that he might fill his rapidly 
emptying purse, and at the same time secure the con- 
tinuation of his house, by espousing the wealthy young 
Duchess of Valentinois. 

Marriages were just then running in Louis' mind. 
And in order to make doubly secure the La Tremoille 
succession, in this same year, 15 17, he betrothed his 
niece, Jacqueline, daughter of his brother, Georges, 
Seigneur de Jonvelle, to the friend of the King's boyhood, 
Anne de Montmorency, who later as Constable of France 
was to be one of the century's most prominent figures. 
In the event of the Count and his brother dying without 
male heirs, Montmorency was to inherit the La Tremoille 
title and possessions. But Jacqueline was not yet of a 
marriageable age, and when she became old enough, 
Montmorency had changed his mind, so this wedding 
never took place. 

For the first few years after his second marriage Louis' 
sword rested in the scabbard. With three young Kings 
on the three greatest thrones of Europe, Henry VHL in 
England, Charles in Spain, Francis in France, Christen- 
dom was en fete, and jest and laughter, hunting and 
dancing were the order of the day. The French court 
was the gayest of all ; and the Spanish ambassadors, 
following the King from chateau to chateau, complained 
that they could never obtain an audience from the 
pleasure-loving monarch : in the evening he was too busy 
with banquet, concert and dance ; in the early morning 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 85 

too sleepy, and no sooner up and awake than off to the 
greenwood with the hunt. 

Every political event was eagerly used as an excuse for 
more festivity. In December and January, 1518 — 1519, 
the court was at Paris entertaining with jousts, banquets, 
balls and hunting parties four English ambassadors, the 
Lord Chamberlain, the Prior of St. John's, the Captain of 
Guisnes, and the Bishop of Ely.^ On December 23rd, the 
King offered these ambassadors one of the most magnifi- 
cent royal banquets recorded in history. It was given in 
the great court of the Bastille, which for the purpose was 
roofed with sail-cloth and lined within by pleached box, 
from which hung oranges and other fruits. The feast was 
followed by a dance, and in the small hours of the morning 
the entertainment closed with an elaborate collation of 
sweetmeats served by court ladies. 

On January ist La Tremoille followed suit, and pre- 
sented the ambassadors with a sumptuous repast in his 
Hotel des Creneaux.^ According to the family records, 
this was a truly Gargantuan feast. The bill, preserved 
for us by the piety or admiration of the host's descendants, 
spreads itself over nine royal octavo pages. Every variety 
of edible fish, flesh and fowl seems to have been there. 
The board groaned beneath 25 lbs. of beef, twenty- 
three fat capons, eight pigs, twelve dozen larks, seventy- 
one pigeons, twelve large hams, five salmon, twenty-four 
eels, 1,100 herrings, 800 oysters, snails, of which we hope 
the English guests did not partake, and all manner of 
other fish. The venison the King himself provided. 
Of the salad let modern housewives take note : there were 

1 " Cal. St. P. Ven. II." (1509 — 1519), 480, 482, 485 et seq. 

2 Probably the magnificent mansion he had recently built on the 
outskirts of the Latin quarter. It was afterwards known as the Hotel 
de La Tremoille. See post, 274, n. 5. 



86 FROM THE CRUSADES 

eighteen dishes of it, arranged artistically in the form 
of flowers and foliage, and its ingredients were 
endive, beetroot and olives. Fruits and sweetmeats 
were not lacking, and the long list of spices used in the 
cooking would excite envy in the breast of any votary 
of the culinary art. The King lent silver plate, and so 
did several of the nobles. Twenty-six lbs. of candles 
illuminated the feast, the total cost of which amounted 
to 676 livres tournois. 

In La Tremoille's recently replenished purse another 
big hole was made in the following year, when the Count 
and his grandson accompanied King Francis to that 
culminating glory of these festive years, the Field of the 
Cloth of Gold. It was, as Michelet calls it, "a duel of 
expenditure," for the nobles of England and France, 
each nation vying with the other in magnificence, sold 
and mortgaged castles and lands to procure for the 
adorning of themselves and their retainers gold and silver, 
jewels, satins and velvets. In such grandeur La Tremoille 
could not be behind the rest. And for his own and his 
grandson's accoutring no doubt his bride's fortune 
proved useful. 

From the family accounts we learn that it was to his 
apothecary, Jean Billard, that Louis entrusted the care 
of his equipment, the ordering of cloaks in the Spanish 
mode fashioned out of " cloth of velvet," a robe of violet 
velvet and sundry other garments, as well as clothes 
for the men-at-arms and coverings for their horses, and 
the painting of the Count's standard, with three banners 
for trumpeters and cornets to boot. 

Thus equipped, we may be sure that old Louis and young 
Francis de La Tremoille ruffled it well among the glittering 
splendours of the golden field. And there it may have 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 87 

been that for the young Prince of Talmond was arranged 
that illustrious marriage with the heiress of the house 
of Laval, which was celebrated in the following year. 

The Prince's grandmother had been a princess of the 
royal Bourbon house, his mother first cousin to the King, 
and now the Prince himself was to marry a King's grand- 
daughter. The grandfather of his Breton bride, Anne de 
Laval, was Frederick of Arragon, King of Naples. And 
through their Neapolitan ancestors we shall find Anne 
de Laval's La Tremoille descendants calling themselves 
Princes of Tarente or Taranto, and for two centuries 
claiming the Neapolitan crown. ^ 

With the Field of the Cloth of Gold the fat years of 
feasting came to an end. In the lean years which followed 
the veteran Count Louis rendered valiant service to France. 
The Kings who had so cordially embraced at Ardres 
were soon falling out. An English army invaded the 
north, while the Emperor attacked France in the south. 
Had it not been for La Tremoille's skilful conduct of the 
northern campaign, the Enghsh might have marched on 
Paris, But, though so badly provided with troops 
that, as soon as he had effectually defended one stronghold 
he must needs move his men to secure the next. Count 
Louis succeeded in driving back the English, not, however, 
before they had approached to within twenty miles of 
Paris. 

This was in the year 1422, just after Bourbon, Constable 
of France, Count Louis' nephew had inflicted a crushing 
blow on his country by deserting to the enemy. 

In the following year we find Louis enjoying a brief 
interval of repose and relaxation at court, where on 
July 12th he paid four livres of Tours to the King's 

1 See post, 155 and n. 2 and 289 and n. i. 



88 FROM THE CRUSADES 

cornets and trumpeters in acknowledgment of " the 
pastime which they had that day afforded him." 

After spending some months in Burgundy defending 
his province against imperial attack, Louis joined his 
King near Avignon in October, 1524, and then for the 
eighth^ and last time crossed the Alps into Italy to take 
part in the famous Pavia campaign. 

The object of this expedition was the reconquest of 
Milan. Making straight for this city, Francis, although 
he failed to capture the citadel, succeeded in taking 
the town and driving out the imperial generals Bourbon, 
Pescara and Charles de Lannoy. The two latter en- 
trenched themselves in the neighbouring town of Lodi, 
while Bourbon crossed the Alps to raise reinforcements 
in Switzerland and Germany. 

Then the King made a fatal mistake, which was to 
cost him his liberty and La Tremoille his life. Instead 
of immediately besieging the enemy in Lodi, Francis 
wasted the winter months in a useless siege of Pavia, and, 
filled with vain confidence by his victory at Milan, disas- 
trously weakened his army by detaching a large part 
of it under the Duke of Albany for the conquest of Naples. 

December and January, the last months of his life. 
La Tremoille passed in the great camp which the French 
constructed round Pavia. It was like a huge town, 
with a population of merchants, victuallers and women 
as well as soldiers, amounting to no less than 70,000 
souls. 

The King, given up to gaiety and all the soft volup- 
tuousness of his beloved Italy, was residing in the neigh- 
bouring chateau of Mirabello. But his generals were 

1 The dates of Count Louis' Italian campaigns are 1494, 1500, 1503, 
1507. 1509, 1513. 1515, 1524—1525- 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 89 

not so comfortably quartered, and La Tremoille may 
have been one of those who was reduced to go and warm 
his hands at his royal master's fire. 

Meanwhile the imperial forces were concentrating at 
Lodi. Bourbon had arrived with reinforcements, and 
late in January the imperial commanders decided to 
come to the relief of the inhabitants of Pavia, who were 
reduced to great straits. On January 24th the imperialists 
left Lodi, and a week later took up their position within 
a mile of the French outposts before Pavia. The French 
were now as if besieged between Pavia on the one hand, 
and the relieving force on the other. Some weeks 
were occupied in skirmishing between the two armies. 
But on February 25th, the imperialists having during 
the night obtained possession of the park of Mirabello, 
the battle was engaged. 

Conflicting accounts render it difficult to ascertain what 
actually took place at Pavia. But concerning the chief 
incident of the battle, there is no doubt : the King, 
accompanied by La Tremoille, threw himself so rashly 
upon his enemies that his infantry found it impossible 
to follow. Francis and the gentlemen of his household 
were isolated. 

La Tremoille, ever in the thickest of the meUe, was 
wounded in the face beneath the eye ; and his horse, 
hkewise wounded, was about to fall beneath him, when a 
certain Jacques de la Brosse, who had once been the 
Count's page, offered Louis his horse. Then, remounted. 
La Tremoille, despite his wound, hastened to his 
sovereign's side, but only to fall, disabled by an arquebus 
shot, and this time mortally wounded. 

Close at hand at this moment was La Tremoille's 
grandson, Francis, who, to avenge his grandsire's death. 



90 FROM THE CRUSADES 

throwing himself into the heart of the battle, was sur- 
rounded by foes on every hand, and taken prisoner. 

A similar fate had overtaken the King himself, while 
many of La Tremoille's companions-in-arms lay with him 
dead upon the battlefield. 

Like most warriors, Count Louis had looked forward to 
death in action. But he who had so often seen the dead 
bodies of wounded generals lying defaced and un- 
recognisable had conceived a curious design for diverting 
from himself a fate so undesirable ; he had told his 
friends that in the case of his being killed in battle his 
body might be identified by the unusual length of the 
nail of his big toe on the right foot, and Bouchet relates 
that it was by this mark that the Count's body was 
recognised. It was borne into one of the churches of 
Pavia. There it remained until, embalmed with myrrh 
and aloes, and enclosed in a coffin, it was conveyed in 
great pomp and magnificence from Italy into France, and 
by way of Lyons, Loudun, and He Bouchard to Thouars, 
where in the church of Notre Dame it found its last 
resting-place in a gorgeous tomb by the side of Gabrielle 
de Bourbon. 

On the day of Louis' funeral at Thouars, tidings 
reached the castle that the new Count Francis had 
returned to Lyons, having paid his ransom of no less than 
9,000 crowns to his three captors, Francesco di Miranda, 
Alvaro di Cartagena and Andrea di Malo. 

Exorbitant as was the amount of this ransom, Francis 
was well able to pay it ; for, as we have seen, his wife had 
brought him a huge fortune. The new Count is said to 
have been the wealthiest of all the La Tremoilles. 

Without playing so important a part in public affairs 
as his grandfather. Count Francis served the King faith- 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 91 

fully in his Italian wars. But it is chiefly as a provincial 
administrator that he is remembered. As lieutenant- 
general of Poitou, Saintonge and Aunis, he protected 
agriculture. Like his great-grandfather, the first Louis, 
he was an ideal country gentleman, and he died peace- 
fully in his bed, in his chateau of Thouars, at the 
comparatively early age of forty. 

Two years before his death he had been charged by the 
King to welcome to Poitiers the Emperor Charles V. on 
his progress through France. 

The eldest of his eleven children, a third Louis, 
succeeded to his domains, and, as we shall see in the next 
chapter, threw himself heartily into the struggle between 
Catholics and Protestants. 



92 FROM THE CRUSADES 



CHAPTER V 

THE LA TREMOILLES AND THE WARS OF RELIGION 

LOUIS III., VICOMTE AND THEN DUG DE THOUARS, I522 — 1577- 
CLAUDE, DUG DE THOUARS, I566 — 1604. 

CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOILLE, PRINCESSE DE CONDE, 1568 — 1629. 
HER SON, HENRI DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDE, I588 — 1646. 

The French Wars of Religion followed hard upon the 
conclusion of the Italian campaigns. When the safety- 
valve for baronial turbulence afforded by foreign warfare 
was closed, then the nobles turned against each other at 
home. For half a century they wasted France in a civil 
war, which was fought in the name of religion, but was 
nothing more nor less than a struggle between rival 
political factions. 

In this conflict the La Tremoilles played an important 
part, fighting first on the Catholic side, and then for a 
generation espousing the Protestant cause. 

Louis 1 11.,^ eldest son of Francis de La Tremoille, 
having served in the Catholic army during the early 
years of the civil war, was, in 1576, appointed lieutenant- 
general of a Poitevin army raised to fight against the 
Protestant leader, the Comte de Lude. Only for a few 
months, however, did La Tremoille occupy this prominent 
post ; for in the following year, while besieging the strong- 

1 1522 — 1577. In 1550 he was sent to England as one of the hostages 
for the execution of the Treaty of Boulogne. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 93 

hold of Melle, he was stricken with an illness which 
proved fatal on the very day of the town's surrender.^ 

Louis was one of the richest of the La Tremoilles. 
Partly on this account, but also as a reward for his 
services to the crown, Charles IX. had converted the 
viscounty of Thouars into a duchy,^ with the unusual 
proviso, that in default of heirs male it was to descend 
through the female line. In 1594 Louis had married 
Jeanne de Montmorency, daughter of the great Constable 
Anne. By her he left two children, a son Claude, born in 
1566, and a daughter Charlotte, two years younger. 

In the province of Poitou, and especially in the town 
of Thouars, during Louis' lifetime. Protestantism had 
been making rapid progress. Berthre de Bournisseaux, a 
Catholic historian,^ relates that a whole convent of nuns 
had been converted and conducted by their abbess to 
Geneva, there to publicly abjure the religion of their 
fathers. Meanwhile, their fellow-converts at home were 
plundering churches, breaking sacred vases, and throwing 
to the four winds all the holy relics they could lay hands 
on. Ascending the pulpit of the church of Notre Dame, 
at Thouars (again we cite the Catholic historian), an ex- 
Carmelite, united in unholy wedlock to a woman whose 
husband was still alive, uttered such terrible blasphemies 
that the scandalised congregation rose, dragged him from 
the church and straightway hanged him in the street 
outside.* 

All these disorders Duke Louis seems to have regarded 
with a serenity unworthy of so stalwart a defender of 
the faith. It was not until the Huguenots had introduced 

1 March 25th, 1577. 
, 2 By letters patent, registered October 21st, 1563. 
8 " Hist, de la Villa de Thouars " (1824), 173 et seq. 
* September 30th, 1561. 



94 FROM THE CRUSADES 

into Thouars for their protection a company of 500 foot 
soldiers, lodging them in the churches and the priests' 
houses, that the Duke somewhat tardily put forth his 
hand and asserted his authority. The Catholic worship, 
which had for some months been suspended, was restored. 
But down to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
Calvinism continued to flourish in Thouars and the 
neighbourhood. 

It was in troublous times, therefore, that Louis' death 
left his wife, Jeanne de Montmorency, a widow, and his 
heir, the young Duke Claude, her son, but a boy of eleven 
years old. But Jeanne was as resolute a person as her 
father ; and she brought up her children with great 
strictness. Probably not a little of Claude's high principle 
and unswerving devotion to duty was due to his mother's 
influence and training. 

Hitherto, with the one exception of Gabrielle de 
Bourbon, there has been little to say of the La Tremoille 
women. But we are now approaching a period when the 
women of this great family in vigorous character and 
decisive action vied with the men, and even surpassed 
them. 

Two years after her husband's death, the Duchesse de 
La Tremoille, believing Claude to have learnt all that his 
home tutor could teach him, sent her boy to Paris with a 
letter ^ to one. Monsieur Rouhet, whom she requested 
to select from the colleges a learned man {un homme docte) 
worthy to instruct her son. 

As soon as he was of an age to bear arms Claude took 
service in the Catholic army, and was soon commanding 
a company of cavalry for King Henry HL But even 

1 See " Jeanne de Montmorency . . . et sa Fille, la Princesse de 
Cond6," published by the Due de La Tremoille, 1895, p. 5. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 95 

in those early years Claude must have been a strenuous 
youth, whom so decadent a monarch was not likely to 
inspire with any enthusiasm. Moreover, contact with 
the Calvinists of Poitou had doubtless already shaken 
Claude's orthodoxy. So we are not surprised to find that 
when, in 1585, the Duke de Mercoeur at the head of a 
Catholic force invaded Poitou, the young Duke de La 
Tremoille threw in his lot with the Protestants and joined 
Henry de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, who was besieging 
Brouage. 

It was indicative of his brave and resolute spirit that 
Claude de La Tremoille should have joined the Protestants 
at a time when their cause seemed most desperate. In 
Holland in the previous year the champion of the 
Protestant faith, William the Silent, had been shot by a 
Catholic fanatic. In England plots were thickening round 
Queen Elizabeth. In Spain, King Philip was preparing 
the great Armada, designed, with one blow, to destroy the 
reformed religion in these Islands. In France this year, 
1585, witnessed the formation of the great Catholic 
League, and the papal excommunication of the Protestant 
leaders, Henry of Navarre and his cousin the Prince de 
Conde. 

One of the results of Claude's joining the Protestants 
at Brouage was that during the siege their leader Conde 
went off to the La Tremoille castle of Taillebourg, there 
to pay his addresses to Mdlle. de La Tremoille, Claude's 
sister Charlotte, then a maiden of seventeen. 

Conde had for eleven years been a sonless widower, 
his first wife, Marie de Cleves, having died in 1574. And 
Charlotte's beauty and intelligence, so we are told, were 
already famous throughout the land. Her intelligence 
we may credit, but her beauty — if we may judge from her 



96 FROM THE CRUSADES 

portraits — would not have appealed to the modern 
suitor. The high, aggressive forehead, the prominent 
eyes, heavy nose and thick lips, suggest ability and 
intelligence. But from the pictures of Charlotte we 
possess, it is hard to guess wherein lay that charm, 
which — if we may believe the gossips of the day — capti- 
vated two royal Henries in succession.^ 

Neither had Conde any physical attractions to recom- 
mend him : -small and insignificant of figure, with 
prominent features and abundant wrinkles, he looked 
considerably older than his age, which was then thirty- 
three. Yet these two plain persons — for we must call 
Charlotte plain — were about to engage in one of the 
most thrilling romances of history, by the side of which 
many a romance of fiction grows dull and pale. 

Charlotte, before she saw Conde, had made him 
her hero. His leadership of the Protestant party since 
1574 had won him a reputation for valour and prowess, 
which appealed to MdUe. de La Tremoille's imagination, 
quickened by the perusal of those popular romances of 
chivalry, which she had eagerly devoured in secret when- 
ever she could escape from her mother's supervision. 

Conde, before he saw Charlotte, had been attracted 
by the idea of marriage with the wealthy, clever and 
" beautiful " Mdlle. de La Tremoille. And both parties, 
when they met, remained enamoured of each other. 

The unconventional conditions of their first meeting 
heightened the romance of their relationship. For the 
Duchess de La Tremoille, journeying from Thouars to 

^ The scandalmonger, Brantome (see " CEuvres," ed. Lalanne, IX. 
Ill), accuses her of having been Henry III.'s mistress. That she 
was the mistress of Henry IV. is suggested in the article in "La Bio- 
graphic Universelle," on what authority we cannot divine, all the 
evidence we can discover going to prove that there was never any 
love lost between Henry of Navarre and the Princesse de Conde. 




k^ 




[A. Giraudon, Photo 

CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOILLE, PRINCESSE DE CONDE 
From a portrait by Fraii9ois Quesnet in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 97 

Taillebourg to chaperon her daughter, had been delayed. 
So Charlotte in solitary state received her suitor and 
entertained him with the perfect assurance of seventeen 
summers, and the perfect serenity of une grande dame. 

To Conde, Charlotte appeared the most beautiful woman 
in the world. To Charlotte, Conde appeared the greatest 
hero. He came to her but poorly attended, like a typical 
knight-errant, with a following of only three or four 
men-at-arms. That her lover should thus for her sake, 
and in open war, hazard his precious life, made Charlotte 
adore him more than ever. The garrison of her castle 
numbered no more than twenty-four men-at-arms. 
She trembled for her Prince's safety. But she did her 
best to minimise the risk he was running. At night, 
while her suitor slept soundly after his journey, this 
maiden of seventeen kept watch and ward. She super- 
intended the changing of the sentinels, and patrolled 
the ramparts, peering out into the darkness to make sure 
that no danger threatened her sleeping hero. Before his 
departure on the morrow Conde recorded in writing a 
promise to marry his brave hostess. 

But, alas ! before that promise could be kept, danger 
and disaster overtook the adventurous lover. Leaving 
his infantry to continue the siege of Brouage, Conde 
proceeded from Taillebourg to attack Angers. On the 
way there he met Madame de La Tremoille. At first the 
Duchess had favoured the proposed marriage ; but now, 
as Conde wrote hurriedly to Charlotte, for " some unknown 
reason " she looked coldly on his suit. This " unknown 
reason" is not difficult to divine ; the King was said to 
have declared against the union, and Conde's prospects 
were steadily darkening. 

Having met with a humiliating repulse before the walls 

C.R. H 



98 FROM THE CRUSADES 

of Angers, the Prince, accompanied by Claude de La 
Tremoille, fled to St. Malo, where he took ship for 
Guernsey. And there, from October to January,^ he 
remained in exile, vainly soliciting help from England. 

Meanwhile Jeanne de Montmorency had joined her 
daughter at Taillebourg. There the stern Duchess found 
herself defied by the iron will of her daughter of seventeen. 
Charlotte refused to break off her engagement to Conde ; 
she likewise refused at her mother's bidding to surrender 
her brother's castle of Taillebourg to the approaching 
Catholic army. 

Jeanne, in high dudgeon, was reduced to leaving her 
daughter in command at Taillebourg. And shortly 
afterwards the castle was besieged by the King's troops. 

Taillebourg, as we have said, was but meagrely garri- 
soned. It was also poorly provisioned, as well as being 
surrounded by the town and difficult to defend. Nothing 
daunted, however, Charlotte, like her niece the Lady of 
Lathom, fifty years later, made every preparation for a 
gallant defence. The only cannon she possessed, two 
small culverins, she placed at the gateway leading to the 
town, and in the night, letting one of her servants down by 
a rope from a castle window, she sent him with letters 
imploring help from the nearest Protestant army. This 
force, commanded by her kinsman, the Comte de Laval, 
quickly came to her aid and dispersed the besiegers. 

Encouraged by her success at Taillebourg, this girl 
of seventeen next began to scheme for her lover's return 
to France, and with this object she went to La Rochelle. 

One day in January, just as Conde and La Tremoille, 
disappointed in their hope of help from England, were 
reduced to the lowest depths of despair, they perceived 

^ 1585— 1586. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 99 

approaching the Guernsey harbour two French ships of 
war. These vessels had been sent by Charlotte from 
La Rochelle. They were commanded by that stalwart 
Protestant, that " Pope of the Huguenots," as he was 
called, M. du Plessis-Mornay, who bore a letter from 
Mdlle. de La Tremoille to her betrothed. 

Joyfully returning to La Rochelle on the warship, the 
exiles were welcomed by their fair deliverer, who, a few 
days later, on January 19th, was formally affianced to 
her hero. And, on the following March i6th, the consent 
of Madame de La Tremoille having been gained, the 
marriage was celebrated very simply, but, as it would 
seem, very appropriately, at that chateau of Taillebourg 
which the bride had so gallantly defended. Almost 
immediately afterwards the bride and bridegroom 
parted, for Conde must needs take the field against the 
Catholics. 

Shortly before her marriage La Princesse de Conde had 
publicly embraced the Protestant faith. A year later 
her brother followed her example. Claude had been 
slow to change his opinions, but once having adopted the 
religion, as it was called, he became a pillar of the faith. 
No mere political Protestant he ; in the fervour of his 
religious belief, and in the strictness of his religious 
practice, he resembled the English Puritans. His two 
most intimate friends were those bulwarks of Protes- 
tantism, M. du Plessis-Mornay and Agrippa d'Aubigne. 
With Henry of Navarre, whom he regarded as a sceptical 
time-server, Claude had no sympathy whatever ; and 
we shall frequently find him withdrawing from the field 
of action, disgusted with Henry's two-facedness : he 
died in the shadow of the King's wrath, " overwhelmed," 
says d'Aubigne, " by the King's hatred." At the time 

H 2 



100 FROM THE CRUSADES 

of the memorable reconciliation between Henry and 
d'Aubigne, so graphically related by the latter, the King 
reproached his former friend with having cared too much 
for La Tremoille. " It was a friendship made in your 
service," objected d'Aubigne. " Yes," replied Henry 
reproachfully, " but when I began to hate him, you did 
not cease from loving him." ^ 

At Henry's brilliant victory of Coutras, won over the 
Due de Joyeuse on October 20th, 1587, Claude was present. 
For Claude's sister, Charlotte, this Protestant victory of 
Coutras was to be fraught with the direst consequences. 
The Prince de Conde, who took part in the action, by 
a fall from his horse sustained an internal injury to which 
the ignorance of sixteenth century surgery attached no 
importance, not even when for five months it was followed 
by frequent attacks of fever, violent pain in the stomach, 
and occasional sickness. And when, on March 5th, 1588, 
Conde died, the doctors regarded his death as so sudden, 
and so mysterious that they demanded a post-mortem 
examination, as the result of which they declared the 
Prince to have died of poisoning. This was the 
verdict of five physicians and surgeons ; and no one 
called it in question except the medical faculty of 
MontpelHer. But not even the Montpellier doctors 
seem to have connected Conde's death with his fall at 
Coutras. 

Even more disastrous than the doctors' obtusity was 
the malice which accused Charlotte of being her husband's 
murderer. This terrible charge was unsupported by a 
particle of evidence save a few wild words uttered by one 
of the witnesses under torture, and afterwards denied. 
Before her marriage Charlotte may have been fast ; 

1 D'Aubign^, " Memoires," ed. le Baron de Ruble, io8. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION loi 

as we have said ^ she was the reputed mistress of Henry HI. 
But that after her marriage to Conde she carried on an 
intrigue with her page, in order to marry whom she 
murdered her husband, which was the charge brought 
against her, would be highly improbable even if the cause 
of Conde 's death were less obvious. 

In those days lack of evidence mattered nothing, and 
Charlotte, though she was never brought to trial, was 
universally regarded as her husband's murderess, and for 
seven years, until 1595, kept in the strictest confinement. 
Had she not been expecting a child at the time of the 
Prince's death she would probably have been subjected 
to torture. 

When in her prison of St. Jean d'Angely^ on Sep- 
tember ist, 1588, Charlotte gave birth to a son, his 
legitimacy was questioned. It was not until four years 
later, when Henry of Navarre had ascended the French 
throne, and when, being without legitimate heirs, it suited 
his purpose to make Charlotte's son his godchild and heir- 
apparent to the French crown, that the King acknow- 
ledged him as Conde 's son and a Prince of the Blood. 
The King's recognition of her son's legitimacy greatly 
improved Charlotte's position by helping to clear her 
from the charge of unfaithfulness to her husband. 

Soon afterwards, the severity of her captivity was so 
far relaxed that she was allowed to leave her prison 
twice a week, in order to attend divine service. Yet, 
though stiU untried and unconvicted, she was regarded 
as a murderess. And the Calvinist ministers of St. Jean 
d'Angely refused to administer the Sacrament to her. 
In vain was there shown to them a letter from the King 

^ See ante, 96, n. 

2 In the province of Saintonge, on the high road from Saintes to 
Poitiers, and about sixty miles from the latter. 



102 FROM THE CRUSADES 

permitting to the Princess all the consolations of her 
religion. The Protestant pastors remained obdurate. 
Then it became necessary for the Duke of Thouars him- 
self to interfere, and the influence of so powerful a pillar 
of the Reformed Church effected what the command of 
an apostate King had failed to accomplish : at the Duke's 
request a special consistory was summoned, which granted 
the Princess the privilege she coveted. 

During all these years Charlotte had had no oppor- 
tunity of clearing herself from the infamous charge under 
which she laboured. Time and again she had appealed 
for judgment to the Parlement of Paris, the highest 
court in the realm, and the only one which she as a 
princess held entitled to pass judgment upon her. 

But it was not until 1595, seven years after her hus- 
band's death, that the King allowed her appeal. Then 
at length she was freed from captivity, and permitted to 
leave St. Jean d'Angely on the solemn promise, for the 
performance of which her brother and other great nobles 
stood surety, to appear before the Parliament at Paris on 
the following July 22nd. 

There and then the Princess de Conde did duly appear ; 
but her two chief accusers, her brothers-in-law, the Prince 
de Conti and the Comte de Soissons, failed to answer the 
Parliament's summons, and so in their default there was 
nothing to be done but to declare the accused innocent. 
Thus at length, after seven interminable years of terrible 
suffering, Charlotte's ordeal came to an end. But there 
is little doubt that her acquittal was merely a political 
move on the part of the King. It did not suit him for the 
mother of his heir to lie in prison under the accusation of 
murder. 

Indeed, all the while the Princess may have been 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 103 

merely the King's scapegoat. For there were those who 
were inchned to accuse Henry himself of having instigated 
his cousin's murder. The two Protestant leaders had 
been known to be rivals, each jealous of the other's power 
and influence. Against Henry there was no more evi- 
dence than against the Princess. But the King was 
doubtless glad to have some one on to whom to cast the 
opprobrium of the supposed crime, until the indignation 
it had aroused had somewhat abated. Almost from the 
first Henry seems to have persuaded himself of Charlotte's 
guilt. " A dangerous beast is a wicked woman," he 
wrote to his mistress, La Belle Corisande,^ soon after 
Conde's death. And even after he had permitted her 
rehabilitation, we doubt whether the King allowed him- 
self to believe in her innocence ; for, while lavishing 
favours upon the young Prince de Conde, Henry always 
treated Conde's mother with marked coldness. Possibly, 
had it not suited the royal purpose, Charlotte might 
have been left to languish like a condemned criminal 
in perpetual captivity. 

In reviewing the history of this cause celebre, one cannot 
help feeling astonished that a family so powerful as the 
La Tremoilles should have permitted Charlotte to suffer 
for so long such terrible injustice. Her mother, we know, 
did all she could to rehabilitate her. As soon as she heard 
of the accusation, the Duchess journeyed to St. Jean 
d'Angely, but when there she was refused admission to 
her daughter's prison.^ Charlotte's brother, however, 

1 " La Princesse de Conde," Ed. Barthel^my, 236. 

2 M. Barthelemy represents Jeanne as having done nothing for her 
daughter ; surely he cannot have seen a letter reproduced in " Jeanne 
de Montmorency et sa Fille," 7, relating the Duchess's journey to 
St. Jean d'Angely, and her efforts on her daughter's behalf. Several 
other letters in this volume prove how energetically the Duchess 
strove to obtain her daughter's freedom and justification. 



104 FROM THE CRUSADES 

the powerful Due de Thouars, was the most influential 
member of her family. And we cannot discover that he 
ever actively bestirred himself to clear his sister from so 
horrible a charge. Apparently his only intervention on 
her behalf was when the ministers of St. Jean d'Angely 
refused her the Sacrament. Can it have been that, 
influenced by his friends, Conde's brothers, he believed 
his sister guilty of so dastardly a deed, and that he only 
changed his attitude towards her when the sun of royal 
favour seemed about to shine upon her and hers ? With 
Calvinistic fatalism La Tremoille may have regarded 
Charlotte's sufferings as a divine punishment for her sins. 
If Claude had heard Brantome's story of the intimacy 
between the Princess and Henry HI., that in itself would 
have been sufficient to prejudice the Protestant Duke 
against his sister, and to account for his lukewarmness in 
her cause. For, although La Tremoille was himself the 
father of a son born out of wedlock, his Calvinism rendered 
him censorious of the failings of others, especially of his 
own sister. Even after Charlotte's acquittal, there is no 
evidence of any friendly intercourse between the brother 
and sister. During the Duke's last illness they were on 
such bad terms that the Duchess refused to admit her 
sister-in-law to Claude's chamber, pleading that the sight 
of the Princess would kill her husband. 

As a brother, therefore, Claude de La Tremoille does 
not win our admiration ; but in his public capacity, as a 
soldier and a defender of the Protestant faith against the 
attacks of the great Catholic League, he appears to 
greater advantage. 

From the time of his return from Guernsey in 1586 
until the pacification of Nantes in 1598, not a year passed 
without finding the Due de Thouars in the field against 



^o> 



vX>-0. 








''■Vv 









[Uirinidon, Photo 
JEANNE DE MONTMORENCY, DUCHESS DE LA TREMOILLE 
From a portrait of the Clouet School 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 105 

the enemies of Protestantism. In 1586, his horse was 
killed under him during an expedition in which he 
besieged and took his own castle of Talmond which the 
Catholics had captured. In the next year he commanded 
a body of light cavalry at Coutras, and in 1588 covered 
the attack on the sea-port of Marans, afterwards inflicting 
a check upon the CathoHcs near Poitiers. In 1589 yve 
find him aiding the Bearnais ^ to besiege the Norman 
chateau of La Garnache, and later in the same year 
saving Tours and the King, Henry III., who was then 
residing within its walls, from capture by the Due de May- 
enne, then commanding the forces of the League.^ In 
this year, on August 4th, Henry III. was assassinated, 
and Henry of Navarre became King of France. But for 
some time a large part of the nation refused to recognise 
him. And, in order to conciliate these malcontents, the 
King, on August 4th, issued a declaration promising to 
respect the Catholic religion, and to himself receive 
instruction in it. 

To so stalwart a Protestant as Duke Claude this com- 
promise seemed a betrayal of the sacred cause. He re- 
fused to fight for a Sovereign pledged to support " popish 
idolatry," and with a large company of Poitevins and 
Gascon reformers withdrew on to his own estates. 

In the following year, however. La Tremoille appears 
to have thought better of his resolution. Possibly it was 
the invasion of France by a Spanish force under the Duke 
of Parma, who came to support the League, that drew 
the Duke once more into action. Raising a force of 

1 A name b^^ which the King of Navarre, also Seigneur de Beam, was 
frequently known among his contemporaries. Catherine de Medicis 
used to call him " mon petit B6arnais." 

2 After Guise's assassination at Blois, on December 23rd, 1588, 
Henry of France and Henry of Navarre had agreed to make common 
cause against the League. 



io6 FROM THE CRUSADES 

500 gentlemen and 2,000 infantry, and equipping them 
all at his own expense, he joined the King's army, and, 
by breaking up a squadron of Walloons, won his share 
of glory in the great victory of Ivry, Later he took 
part in the long and unsuccessful siege of Paris. In 
1592, he was present at the siege of Rouen, which was 
relieved by the Duke of Parma, and in 1595 at Henry's 
final defeat of the Spaniards at Fontaine-Frangaise. 

Though a valiant soldier. La Tremoille had a tender 
heart ; at least, when neither religion nor morals were 
concerned. And his friend, D'Aubigne, relates ^ how 
one day, when they were passing by a place where 
terrible slaughter had occurred, the Duke turned pale and 
trembled, while his companion took him by the hand, 
saying : " Comrade, you must look at these things 
boldly, for in our life one has to accustom oneself to the 
sight of death." 

It was in the year of Fontaine-Fran9aise, in 1595, that 
the King rewarded La Tremoille's services by converting 
his duchy into a duche pairie,'^ or duchy with a peerage 
attached. So Claude was now admitted to the mystic 
circle of the twelve peers of France, a company descended 
from the dim mists of the Dark Ages, for it had been 
called into being by no less a hero than the Emperor 
Charlemagne himself. But it was not until four years 
later that this high honour was publicly conferred upon 
La Tremoille. Then, by an elaborate ceremony performed 
by the Parlement of Paris, in the presence of the King 
and all the court, he was admitted to the company of 
the twelve.^ 

* " M6moires," ed. le Baron de Ruble, 109. 

2 The peerage, unlike the duchy, descended only to heirs male, and 
in their default became extinct. 

^ It is described by Louise de Coligny, the step-mother of the Duchesse 
de La Tremoille, in one of her letters to her daughter. See " Lettres 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 107 

In bestowing a peerage upon La Tremoille, Henry's 
motive was that proverbial gratitude which anticipates 
services to come while rewarding those that are past, 
for in the settlement with the Protestants which was to 
follow his accession to the throne of France^ the King 
hoped to gain the support of the greatest Protestant 
leader in the west. 

But the Due de Thouars was not to be bribed ; while 
accepting his peerage as a royal acknowledgment for all 
he had done in the past, Claude was determined to 
preserve an independent attitude in the future. In 
1596, we find him seizing, for the payment of the 
Protestant garrison of Thouars, funds belonging to the 
crown, and in 1597 battling nobly for the Protestant 
cause in the negotiations which were to terminate in 
the Edict of Nantes. To La Tremoille's refusal to 
compromise were largely due those highly advantageous 
terms which the Edict granted to the Huguenots. 

In order to discuss the terms of the settlement, a great 
assembly of deputies from the Huguenot churches was 
summoned to meet at Chatellerault on June i6th, 1597. 
And of this assembly the Due de Thouars was elected 
President. The fact that he was then suffering from an 
attack of his lifelong enemy, the gout, probably did not 
increase his amenability ; and soon, disgusted with the 
moderate demands of the deputies, he withdrew to 
Poitou, and there occupied himself in raising troops to 
be employed against the crown in case the assembly 
failed to arrange a settlement. Towards the close of 
the year, however, the Protestant churches persuaded 

de Louise de Coligny . . . a . . . Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau, 
Duchesse de La Tremoille," ed. Marchegay, 1872, 10. 

1 Henry of Navarre was crowned King of France at Chartres on 
February 27th, 1594. 



io8 FROM THE CRUSADES 

La Tremoille to return to Chatellerault and resume his 
presidency. Here he repulsed all the attempts of the 
King's emissaries, Gaspard de Schomberg and the 
President de Thou, to buy his submission with the promise 
of a pension for himself and high offices for his friends. 
Indignantly addressing these tempters, the Duke 
exclaimed: "Gentlemen, I excuse you, for you come 
from extinguishing the League, the members of which 
you found swollen with private interest. To prick such 
persons in their most sensitive spot was enough to reduce 
the whole party to nothing. To show you that such 
conditions do not exist among us, let me tell you that 
were you to give me half the kingdom and to refuse those 
poor folk in the hall liberty to serve God in safety, it 
would profit you nothing. But if you grant them such 
things as are just and necessary, then the King may hang 
me at the door of the assembly, and you will still have 
accomplished your mission and established your work on 
a sure foundation." 

Marvelling at these words, the President de Thou 
turned to D'Aubigne, and asked whether there were many 
Huguenots like this. 

Still finding it impossible to procure what he con- 
sidered fair terms. La Tremoille, on March 6th, again 
withdrew into Poitou, and this time he did not return. 

His successor in the presidency proved more docile, 
and on April 13th, 1598, the Edict of Nantes was signed 
and declared irrevocable. 

Considering the ideas of religious toleration then 
prevalent, the provisions of the Edict were quite as 
favourable as the Protestants had any right to expect. 
They were granted the free exercise of their religion in all 
places where it had been established in the two preceding 




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TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 109 

years, in those named in the Edict of 1577, and in one 
city or town in every district of a seneschal where its estab- 
lishment did not infringe treaties already made with 
Catholics. Further, no less than 100 strongholds, some 
of them extremely defensible, like Montpellier, Montauban 
and La Rochelle, were left for eight years in the possession 
of the Protestant party ; and, while the Huguenots were 
to appoint the governors of these places, the Catholic 
state undertook to pay them and their garrisons. When 
we remember that, in addition to these privileges Protes- 
tants were to be admitted to all colleges, schools and 
hospitals, to all offices and employments, without sub- 
mitting to any oath or ceremony contrary to their 
conscience, and that they were to be permitted to found 
schools and colleges of their own, we realise how great was 
the strength of the Protestant party as established by the 
Edict of Nantes, and how high a price La Tremoille's firm- 
ness compelled King Henry to pay for Protestant support. 

Whilst at Chatellerault, La Tremoille had not been 
wholly absorbed in the negotiations between the King and 
the Huguenots ; other matters, one of which was extremely 
personal, had engaged his attention. For some years he 
had been in search of a wife, and now, in 1597, he was 
proposing to marry Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau,^ the 
daughter of that great hero and martyr of Protestantism, 
William the Silent, Prince of Orange.^ 

WiUiam had been four times married ; and the lady 
whom La Tremoille was courting was the Prince's daughter 
by his third wife, Charlotte de Bourbon,^ daughter of 
Louis, Due de Montpensier. 

1 Born at Antwerp on September 27th, 1580. 

2 He had been assassinated in 1584. 

^ Before embracing " the religion," Charlotte had been abbess of 
the Convent of Jouarre. William's other wives were Anne d'Egmont, 



no FROM THE CRUSADES 

The marriage contract between Claude de La Tremoille 
and Charlotte of Nassau, drawn up at Chatellerault, was 
signed by the bride's brother, Maurice of Nassau, Prince of 
Orange, in his camp before the town of Oldenzeel, on 
October 23rd, 1597. The bridegroom, being too much 
occupied with political affairs to leave his country, the 
Princess Charlotte, accompanied by her step-mother 
Louise, Coligny's daughter, and her governess, journeyed 
to Thouars, where in March, 1598, the marriage was 
celebrated. 

At first Henry IV. seems to have considered himself 
slighted because La Tremoille had not consulted him 
before asking for the hand of a foreign princess. So 
Claude deemed it prudent to despatch an emissary to 
court in order to explain his action to the King. The 
emissary was apparently successful, and Henry must 
have relented, for the year after the wedding we find him 
graciously granting, as a sign of his favour, to the servants 
of La Dame de La Tremoille, Duchesse de Thouars, per- 
mission to bear muskets throughout the length and 
breadth of her lands, and to shoot such game " as are not 
forbidden by royal ordinances." ^ 

Both for husband and wife, Claude's marriage appears 
to have been a very happy one. Abundant evidence of 
their affection for one another may be found in the 
interesting letters of Charlotte's step-mother, Louise de 
CoHgny. 

Interspersed with family matters and scenes of country 
life are vivid descriptions of everyday doings at the 
French court. There we see the ladies quarrelling over 

Anne, daughter of Maurice, Elector of Saxony, and Louise de Coligny, 
daughter of the Admiral and widow of Charles de T61igny, who perished 
in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

1 " Les La Tremoilles pendant cinq SiScIes," IV., 31. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION iii 

precedence, while those whose privilege was beyond 
dispute sit serenely on their tabourets round Queen Marie 
de Medicis, all busily at work embroidering a vast counter- 
pane. That Louise and her step-daughter were on the 
best of terms is proved by the playful manner in which 
the Admiral's daughter twits Madame de La Tremoille for 
her disgraceful handwriting : "I am sure you will find it 
as difficult to read mine as I do yours," she writes, 
" because for you every day calligraphy must become 
more and more of a lost art." ^ 

As one reads these lively letters, one would never dream 
through what terrible tragedies their writer had lived in 
earlier years — that, by the hands of Catholic assassins, she 
had been orphaned and twice widowed.^ Yet even over 
Louise's gaiety serious concerns do occasionally cast their 
shadow : that eternal lack of pence, which in days of civil 
war harassed all classes, makes itself felt in the Princess's 
reiterated request for the repayment of certain monies 
which she had lent to the Duke at the time of his marriage. 
In her letters to her step-daughter the plaintive request 
occurs over and over again like a refrain ; "I would come 
and visit you at Thouars if only La Tremoille would pay 
me my money ; " " I hear that the Duke is to visit Paris, 
remind him to bring my money with him," and so forth. 
No wonder that Claude was in financial difficulties, seeing 
what vast sums he had expended on the equipment and 
maintenance of troops during the religious wars. But 
in the end the loan was repaid, although not long after- 
wards we find the Duke compelled to raise money by 

1 " Lettres de Louise de Coligny . . . a . . . Charlotte Brabantine 
de Nassau," 9 — 10. 

2 Her father, Admiral Coligny, had been killed on the eve of the 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572), during which her first husband, 
Charles de Teligny, perished ; while her second husband, William, Prince 
of Orange, was shot by the fanatic, Gerard, shortly after their marriage. 



112 FROM THE CRUSADES 

selling to Maximilien de Bethune, Marquis de Rosny, the 
fine old La Tremoille chateau of Sully, which, as will be 
remembered, had been in the family for over 200 years. 

Despite this financial misunderstanding, Louise was 
sincerely attached to her son-in-law. And perhaps what 
pleased her most in him was his affection for his wife. 
" Your husband is passionately in love with you," she 
writes to Charlotte. But Madame de La Tremoille did not 
need this assurance, for at that time Claude was writing 
her amorous letters, one of which, dated Paris, June 27th, 
1598, has been preserved in the La Tremoille archives.^ 

After referring to the petty jealousies and quarrels of 
the court, and expressing solicitude for his wife's health, 
Claude writes : "I greatly desire to see you. Besides 
the affection for you which my duty enjoins upon me, 
believe me, my dear lady, all my inclination is to love you 
passionately. Never doubt it, and believe that I adore 
you as much as it is possible to adore anyone. Often do 
I recall my delight in your presence and my joy in your 
young beauty.- My imagination leads me to tell you of 
my ardour. When we are parted my greatest joy is to 
think of you. Farewell, my heart, a thousand and a 
thousand times do I kiss you ; and rather would I die 
than that the affection which I am sure you bear me 
should diminish." 

On December 22nd, 1598, Charlotte gave birth to a 
son,^ whom his fond grandmother hears is "a child 
so handsome, and so fat that he might well be 
mistaken for a Dutch baby." ^ " His uncle," ^ she 

1 " Le Chartier de Thouars," 108. 

2 Born in 1580, the Duchess was eighteen at the time of her marriage, 
while her husband was thirty-two. 

8 Henry, Due de La Tremoille. 
* " Lettres," 8. 

2 The Due de Bouillon, who had married another daughter of William 
the Silent. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 113 

continues, " swears that he is Hke his own Httle daughter, 
but that is pure imagination, since he has never seen 
him." 1 

Then there followed in succession three other children : 
in December, 1599, Charlotte,^ who married Lord Strange, 
later Earl of Derby ; in October, 1600, Elizabeth, who died 
in infancy ; and about March, 1602, Frederic, who took 
the title of Comte de Laval, and was killed in a duel at 
Venice in 1642. Claude's domestic bliss was but short- 
lived. Despite annual visits to French watering-places, 
his old enemy, the gout, was growing more and more 
importunate. The lively Louise in one of her letters^ 
pictures her son-in-law in his bath. " I can see," she 
writes, " his fat valet, bearing with all his weight on the 
Duke's shoulders in order to emerse him in the mud, and 
all the while pulling wry faces as he sees his master's skin 
defiled with mire, but mire which is salutary, since it 
does him so much good." 

The baths failed to effect a cure, and in October, 
1604, while his daughter Charlotte lay ill of the small- 
pox, the Duke died at Thouars, in the presence of his 
old friend, M. du Plessis-Mornay. 

The latter and Agrippa d'Aubigne were present, on 
October 26th, at the opening of La Tremoille's will. 
This is a striking document,* expressing the Duke's stern 
Huguenotterie and unrelenting Calvinism. After making 
a profession of faith in " the true and perfect religion of 
Jesus Christ as professed by the reformed Churches of 
France," Claude proceeds to threaten with his curse any 
of his children who, forsaking "this true and perfect" 

1 "Lettres," ii. 

2 She became the famous Lady of Lathom, of whom miore hereaftei . 
8 Dated October, 1600. 

* See " Les La Tr^moilles pendant cinq Siecles," IV., 34. 

C.R. I 



114 FROM THE CRUSADES 

religion in which alone lies salvation, shall marry outside 
the reformed Church, 

Claude's terrible injunction, however, proved un- 
availing : only fourteen years later, his son and successor, 
Henry de La Tremoille, braving his father's curse, 
having been instructed by Cardinal Richelieu, in the 
camp before La Rochelle, abjured his father's religion, 
and returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church. 

Henry's abjuration did not end the La Tremoille 
connection with Protestantism. His wife, Marie de la 
Tour, remained a Calvinist, and his son and daughter both 
reverted to their grandfather's religion. 

Meanwhile, Henry's Aunt Charlotte, the famous Princesse 
de Conde and her son had some years before Claude's 
death^ been received back into the Roman Communion. 

While Claude died at thirty-eight, Charlotte lived to be 
an old woman. In 1604, the Princess's adventurous 
career had still many years to run-^years in which her 
inflexible will and imperious temper were to involve her 
in more than one serious dispute, and even in civil war. 

In 1596, she with her son had taken up her abode at 
St. Germain. As governor to the young Prince, then 
the recognised heir-presumptive to the throne of France, 
the King had appointed the Marquis de Pisani. For this 
important office Henry could hardly have chosen a man 
more eminent in council and in war. Besides being a famous 
marshal, Pisani was a veteran diplomatist. But to us his 
chief interest is the reflected glory which he gains from his 
daughter, the brilliant Marquise de Rambouillet, the mis- 
tress of what is commonly held to be the first French Salon. ^ 

1 In 1596. 

2 In reality, other Salons less famons but equally distinguished, 
Louise Labe's at Lyon and Madame de Morel's at Paris, had flourished 
in the sixteenth century. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 115 

That the Marquis de Pisani was not a very tactful tutor 
appears from a letter he wrote to King Henry soon after 
his appointment. The Princess and her son had just 
arrived at St. Germain. " Madame, his mother, takes 
great care of him," writes Pisani. But he goes on to 
complain that the Prince has no establishment of his own, 
not even a piece of furniture, that he sleeps in his mother's 
room, and that his Governor can never see him in the 
morning and evening to correct "sundry little faults 
which time will increase, if they be not checked early." ^ 

This attempt to thrust himself in between mother and 
child caused the Princess to dislike Pisani ; and from first 
to last they were sworn foes, for ever disputing as to the 
method of their charge's upbringing. " It is pitiable to 
see how this little Prince is being treated," wrote his 
Governor.^ 

Pisani's method was probably the best ; at any rate 
the following anecdote related by Tallemant des Reaux 
makes the tutor's regime appear to have been bottomed 
in sound sense. Riding along the road one day on their 
way to the hunt, the Marquis and his pupil passed a 
peasant, who in humble loyalty prostrated himself at 
his prince's feet. But the young Conde went on his way, 
paying no heed to the man's salutations, not even by 
so much as a nod. " Monsieur," remonstrated his 
Governor, " there may be no one lower than that man, 
as there is no one higher than you ; but if he and his 
equals did not cultivate the land, you and your equals 
would be in danger of dying from starvation." ^ 

Perhaps the imputation of insensibility to feminine 
charms under which Conde was to labour in after years 

Barthel^my, " La Princesse de Conde," 205. 
2 Ibid., 93. 
' Tallemant des Reaux, " M^moires," ed. 1834, I. 32. 

I 2 



Ii6 FROM THE CRUSADES 

arose from the strictness of his upbringing ; for we are 
told that when he and the future Queen of Rambouillet 
were children together, in one of their games, he took 
the little girl's head in his hands and kissed her, an 
indiscretion for which, so runs the tale, he was punished 
so severely that he ever afterwards disliked women. ^ 

The perpetual bickerings between Charlotte and her 
son's Governor only came to an end when, in 1599, 
Pisani died, and Henry IV. appointed to succeed him 
a man after the Princess's own heart, the Comte de Bellin, 
a former general of the League.^ 

But by that time the young Conde's importance was 
beginning to dwindle, for Henry IV., having obtained a 
divorce from his first wife. Marguerite de Valois, had 
married Marie de Medicis, who was about to bear him an 
heir. " When I wished to make my nephew a King, I 
gave him the Marquis of Pisani," said Henry, " when I 
wished to make him a subject I gave him the Comte de 
Bellin." ^ 

Pisani had died at the Princess's residence of St. 
Maur-les-Fosses, an ancient Abbey, not far from Paris, 
once belonging to Catherine de Medicis, and after her 
death purchased by Charlotte's mother. The Abbey, 
with the rest of Jeanne de Montmorency's estate, had on 
her death, in 1596, passed into her daughter's possession ; 
and La Princesse de Conde was now a rich woman. 
Her wealth, however, did not hinder her from waging a 
warfare of words with that skilful financier. Sully, on 
the questions of the amount of her son's pension and the 
sum to be expended on the maintenance of his household. 

Having withdrawn to St. Maur in order to escape 

1 Tallemant des Reaux^ op. cit. I., 32. 

2 Tbid., 7.2. 

3 /Jj^.^ 32, 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 117 

from an epidemic which was ravaging St. Germain, 
the Princess continued to reside at the Abbey until the 
close of Henry's reign ; for the King, persisting in his 
dislike of his cousin's widow, always met with coldness 
her various attempts to obtain a position at court. 

Only once during the ten years which preceded Henry's 
assassination ^ do we find her appearing at Paris. That 
was in March, 1609, on the occasion of her son's marriage 
with the beautiful Charlotte de Montmorency.^ Then 
the Princess de Conde was present with all the court 
at the formal betrothal in the Louvre gallery at 
Chantilly. 

With Mdlle. de Montmorency, who was considered 
by all the court gallants to be perfect in beauty and in 
grace, the King was passionately in love. And it was in 
the hope of making her his mistress that Henry had 
chosen for her husband the cold-blooded Conde, the reputed 
misogynist of the court. But the King was mistaken in 
his cousin ; Conde did not prove the accommodating 
husband he had hoped ; for, suspecting the royal designs, 
he obtained permission to take his wife to Moret, on the 
edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, and thence, putting 
her on a pilUon behind one of his valets, he carried her 
off in haste to the Low Countries. 

The news of his lady's departure was brought to the 
King at Paris as he sat at cards with some nobles of the 
court. " My friend, I am lost," whispered the King to 
his partner, " take care of my money and keep the game 
going while I enquire into this matter."^ Having learned 

1 May, 1610. 

^ Daughter of the Constable, Henry de Montmorency, known earlier 
as Marechal de Damville, son of the famous Anne de Montmorency. 

* " M^moires," Bassompierre, ed. Mich, at Poujoulat, S^rie II., 
Vol. VI. 67. 



il8 FROM THE CRUSADES 

that the tidings were only too true, Henry flew into a 
violent passion. Summoning his ministers, he inquired 
first from one, then from the other, what was to be done, 
while the cautious Sully nearly drove his master to despera- 
tion by counselling him to do nothing. Far from following 
Sully's advice, Henry, in the hottest haste, despatched a 
gentleman of the court to pursue the fugitives and, if 
possible, persuade them to return ; but, in the event of 
his failure, the messenger was instructed to warn the 
powers of the Low Countries that they would incur the 
enmity of the King of France if they granted harbourage 
to the runaway couple. 

In both missions Henry's messenger failed, for Conde 
and his bride crossed the frontier and found refuge at 
Brussels. There the lady stayed until the King's death. 
Conde, as soon as his wife was out of the King's way, 
ceased to take any interest in her and, escaping in disguise, 
went off to Italy. He was at Milan when the news of 
Henry's assassination reached him and brought him 
back to Paris. 

Marie de Medicis, who had seized the Regency on her 
husband's death, dreaded Conde's return, fearing that, 
as a Prince of the Blood, he might claim the right to rule 
during the King's minority. But, although he entered 
the capital in a somewhat redoubtable manner, at the 
head of 1,500 gentlemen, Conde proved ready to sell his 
birthright for a pension of 50,000 crowns and the Hotel 
de Gondi.^ Afterwards, he installed his mother in 
a little hotel in the Rue de Conde close by. Then, in 
these two palaces, the Prince and Princess Dowager 
proceeded to hold a veritable court, and to gather round 

1 Later known as the H6tel de Conde. Pulled down in the 
eighteenth century ; it occupied almost exactly the site of the 
modern Theatre de I'Odeon. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 119 

them a party of opposition to the government of the 
Queen Regent and of her favourite, Concini, best known 
as the Marechal d'Ancre. 

The chief point of their attack was the government's 
foreign poHcy, the Franco-Spanish alHance, which was to 
be cemented by a double marriage, that of Louis XHL 
with Anne of Austria, Phihp IIL's eldest daughter, 
and of Elizabeth of France with the Prince of the Asturias. 
Twice, in 1614 and 1615, did Conde and his associates 
have recourse to arms. Although they failed to prevent 
the Spanish marriages — that of Louis XI I L was cele- 
brated in the Cathedral of Bordeaux in November, 
1615 — they succeeded in forcing the government to 
summon the States General — for the last time before 
the Revolution. They succeeded also in extracting from 
the crown vast sums of money, which were paid into the 
Prince's exchequer. Indeed, from the two agreements 
of Sainte Menehould and Loudon, Conde acquired so 
much power and importance, which he used with so much 
insolence, that he seemed to eclipse the authority of the 
Queen : the finances were abandoned to his direction ; 
no ordinance was issued without his signature ; and, 
while the Louvre was deserted, to Conde's hotel such 
crowds resorted that it was difficult to approach the gates. 
So powerful a rival Marie de Medicis could not possibly 
tolerate. While apparently all smiles and graces to the 
Prince, she was in reality planning his arrest. This took 
place one morning, September ist, 1616, in the King's 
chamber in the palace of the Louvre.^ 

Very soon afterwards the Princess Dowager, in her hotel, 
received the news that her son had been assassinated. 

1 It is graphically related in " L'Histoire des Princes de Conde," by 
the Duo d'Aumale '{1886), III. 85—87. 



120 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Charlotte was by that time a middle-aged woman of 
forty-eight, but the courage and decision of early years 
now returned to her. This was the kind of occasion 
when she appeared to greatest advantage. Immediately 
she ordered her coach, and, accompanied by an imposing 
escort on horseback, drove through the streets of the 
capital endeavouring to raise Paris on her son's behalf. 
Leaning out of the carriage window, her face bathed in 
tears, she cried : "To arms, gentlemen of Paris ! The 
Marechal d'Ancre has slain Monsieur le Prince ! To arms, 
all good Frenchmen ! " And her escort re-echoed the 
cry. 

But this dramatic scene availed nothing. While a few 
shops were shut for fear of disturbance, the phlegmatic 
Parisians looked on, and laughed when one feeble old 
woman stretched a chain across the street. 

Having driven down to the Pont de Notre Dame, 
Charlotte, convinced of the failure of her attempted coup 
d'etat, ordered her coachman to turn round, and with her 
escort went back to her hotel, where she found some 
thirty of her friends assembled. Having learnt from them 
that, after all, her son was alive although a prisoner, she 
adopted her friends' advice to renounce all attempt to 
raise a rebellion.^ 

This, as far as we know, was the Princess's last sensa- 
tional appearance in public. During her son's imprison- 
ment, first in the Bastille, then at Vincennes, she made 
every effort for his deliverance, and vainly solicited 
the interference of James I. of England on his behalf. 
But Conde was not released until 1619. Some time before, 
his wife had joined him at Vincennes, where in this year 

1 The only disorder which actually took place was the sacking of the 
hotels of Concini and of his secretary by the mob, under the leadership 
of one Picard, a shoemaker. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION i2t 

she gave birth to a daughter, who was to become the 
famous Duchesse de Longueville.^ 

Of Charlotte de La Tremoille's last years there is little 
to relate. Like that other turbulent Frenchwoman, 
Georges Sand, after a tempestuous youth and maturity, 
the Princess enjoyed a peaceful old age. She became 
reconciled to her sister-in-law, the Dowager Duchess of 
Thouars, with whose eldest son Henry, Due de Thouars, 
she had been for some years corresponding on friendly 
terms. She lived to see the head of the La Tremoille 
house return to the Catholic faith, and she died in the 
following year, on August 29th, 1629, in her hotel at 
Paris. 

Her body was buried in the Convent of the Ave Maria, 
where an elaborate monument was erected to her memory.^ 
Her heart was placed in the burial-place of the Condes at 
Valery, near Montereau. 

The story of her son's life after her death belongs to 
the history of the House of Conde. Here it may suffice 
to say that he became the bitter enemy of the Huguenots, 
fighting against them in the expedition to the He de Re, 
and retiring from the army rather than make peace with 
those into whose church he had been born. Ever careful 
to secure his own personal advancement, he married his 
son, then the Due d'Enghien, to the niece of Cardinal 
Richelieu. Surviving until 1646, he lived to see the 
dawn of that son's military glory. 

^ Two years later was born Conde's son, Louis, who was to be known 
as " le Grand Conde." 
2 See illustration. 



122 FROM THE CRUSADES 



CHAPTER VI 

THE LADY OF LATHOM. 1559 — ^664 

Now we come to a La Tremoille who is no stranger 
to English readers. For Charlotte de La Tremoille, 
Duke Claude's daughter, stands immortalised in one of the 
most popular of our novels, in " Peveril of the Peak." 
Students of history know her as the stern Countess of 
Derby who gallantly defended Lathom House against 
the Parliamentarians. Readers of fiction remember her 
chiefly as the imperious lady in Scott's novel, who, 
advancing suddenly from behind the arras in the gilded 
chamber of Martindale Castle, startled little Peveril and 
the baby Alice at their play. 

While the Lady of Lathom's gifted biographer,^ Madame 
de Witt, accused Scott of travestying the Countess, and of 
degrading one of the noblest of women into a mere heroine 
of melodrama, others may marvel at the accuracy with 
which the novelist has caught and rendered the spirit of 
Charlotte de La Tremoille. Scott may have availed 
himself of the novelist's license to twist and distort facts. 
Indeed, in his introduction to " Peveril of the Peak," 
he admits that he has dared to transform into a Catholic 
so stalwart a Protestant as Duke Claude's daughter. 
He might also have admitted that at her door instead of 
at her son's, he has laid the guilt, if guilt it were, of the 

1 The two best biographies of the Lady of Lathom are one by Madame 
de Witt (translated into English, 1869), and another bv Leon Marlet 
(1895)- 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 123 

traitor Christian's summary execution. But for these 
violations of the letter of history his adherence to its 
spirit amply atones ; and no one has ever passed a truer 
verdict upon Charlotte's character than Sir Walter's 
description of the famous Countess as " a man when so 
many men proved women." 

Charlotte was every inch a heroine and every inch the 
granddaughter of William the Silent. Not only from her 
illustrious lineage, however, but also from her strenuous 
upbringing, she derived that heroism with which she 
ever confronted the vicissitudes of her tempestuous life. 

She was, as we have said, a mere child when her father 
died. And it was to two stern Protestant women, her 
step -grandmother, Louise de Coligny, the Admiral's 
daughter, and her mother, Charlotte Brabantine, the 
daughter of William the Silent, that fell the care of her 
nurture and education. The chief object of these 
Calvinist dames seems to have been to tame their 
young charge's turbulence and to break her will. This 
they never completely achieved. They did succeed, 
however, in refining Charlotte's passionate turbulence 
into that calm courage and her obstinate self-will into 
that persistent tenacity which were eventually to render 
her the brave defendress of her husband's house and lands. 

There is little doubt that all seventeenth century 
children, but especially those of Puritan parents, were 
more strictly brought up than are the children of to-day. 
It was, therefore, in accordance with the custom of the 
age that Charlotte's childhood should have been a series 
of chastisements. In mortal terror of these punishments 
we find the child in her own early letters, and in those of 
her mother and grandmother, constantly protesting her 
resolution " to be good." But that this resolve frequently 



tM FROM THE CRUSADES 

shared the proverbial fate of such determinations may be 
gathered from the numerous references in her relatives' 
letters to a generous administration of the rod. 

" I have her well flogged whenever she deserves it," 
wrote her grandmother at the Hague, where Charlotte 
was then staying ; and again, " her governess does not 
spare the cane." Even the child's absent mother from 
distant Thouars collaborated in her little girl's punishment, 
and when she heard that Charlotte had been naughty 
refused to send her a New Year's gift. 

Mdlle. de La Tremoille's weaknesses were those of most 
little girls of her age : a love of play, a lack of application 
and a fondness for dress. But the Calvinist minds 
of her guardians tortured these healthy symptoms 
into signs of original sin, which, if not nipped 
in the bud, would bloom later into vices hideous and 

deadly. " To-day, Sunday " triumphantly writes 

Charlotte's grandmother, " she is crying because she 
is not allowed to wear her best frock." 

Yet even Coligny's daughter permitted some worldly 
amusements. Charlotte went to parties. But the heart 
of her absent mother was filled with misgiving when she 
heard that her little daughter had been the belle of a 
babies' ball. Such vanities could only have one result, 
and surely enough, so she gathered from the next letter, 
that result followed. Charlotte was said to be showing 
a dangerous fondness for the opposite sex, for she had been 
found talking privily to her grandmother's nephew, a 
youth in his teens, one of the Chatillons who was staying 
at the Hague. 

In those days the young ladies of the Dutch capital 
were reputed fast, and the influence of these flighty 
damsels Charlotte's mother feared was beginning to 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 125 

bear poisonous fruit in her little girl of ten. So Mdlle. 
de La Tremoille was recalled from the snares of the Hague 
to the cloistered retreat of her Poitevin home. In vain 
did Louise and the castigating governess write protesting 
that Charlotte's flirtation with Chatillon was but an 
exception, and that usually she regarded her boy friends 
with the proudest disdain. William the Silent 's daughter 
was not to be convinced, and Charlotte came home. 

Very absurd to us to-day seems all this fuss over a 
boy and girl's harmless conversation. But we must 
remember that in the seventeenth century maidens grew 
up quickly, that a girl of ten was then regarded as a 
young miss of seventeen would be now, and that in ques- 
tions of morals Calvinists have always tended to make 
mountains out of mole-hills. 

At Thouars, Charlotte had no playmates of either sex 
to join her in those games of which she was reputed so 
inordinately fond. For her only sister Elizabeth had 
died of that same epidemic of small-pox which, at the 
time of her father's death, had smitten Charlotte. Her 
eldest brother, Henry, gloomy and taciturn, was no 
cheerful companion when at home, and frequently he 
was absent on those distant travels which were then held 
necessary for the education of a complete gentleman. 

With what meticulous care Madame de La Tremoille 
educated her children may be seen in the list of instruc- 
tions^ with which she equipped her son, when, in December, 
1613,^ the young Duke, then a boy of fifteen, set out for 
Holland, there to visit his uncle, the Stadtholder, Prince 
Maurice of Nassau. In these instructions we find the 
length of the traveller's absence, not more than four or 

^ " Chattier de Thouars," 124 — 125. 

* Two years later Henry visited Switzerland and Italy. 



126 FROM THE CRUSADES 

five weeks, carefully specified, a list of the towns he is 
to visit — on no account must he miss Delft and Leyden — 
admonitions as to his expenditure — at the Hague he 
may buy himself a complete outfit, but nothing must 
be purchased save by the advice of those who accompany 
him — and rules for his daily conduct — an hour every 
afternoon must be set aside for some profitable exercise, 
all that is remarkable in the places visited must be 
observed and written down, but above all things, the 
traveller must not forget to pray every night and morning, 
" remembering that without God he can do nothing." 

Charlotte's youngest brother, Frederic, Comte de Laval, 
was her favourite. To him she was devotedly attached, 
and over his babyhood she watched with all the passionate 
tenderness of a loving little mother. Frederic's was a 
cheerful spirit ; but, alas ! his natural gaiety, reacting 
against Calvinist strictness, was to lead him into wild and 
yet wilder courses, until finally he perished in a duel at 
Venice. Not long after her return from the Hague, 
however, Charlotte and Frederic were parted, for the 
young Comte de Laval was sent away from home to 
pursue his studies at the University of Sedan. 

Meanwhile, Mdlle. de La Tremoille's own edu- 
cation was progressing apace, and she could write to her 
mother : " Thank God, you will find me quite learned. 
I know seventeen Psalms, all the quatrains of Pibrac, all 
the huitains of Zamariel, and above all, I can talk Latin. ^ 
But these serious studies, while developing a strenuous - 
ness of character which was to prove valuable in after 



1 Charlotte de La Tremoille's letters quoted in this chapter may be 
found in the two biographies of the Lady of Lathom already referred to. 
Both Madame de Witt and Leon Marlet claim to have copied the letters 
direct from the original MSS., which are in the possession of the Duke 
de La Tremoille. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 127 

years, can hardly have enlivened the little girl's solitude. 
Among her seventeen Psalms would doubtless be those 
two Huguenot favourites, the battle psalm as it was called : 
" Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered ; let them 
also that hate Him flee before Him," and that eloquent 
lamentation, " My tears have been my meat day and 
night . . . O my God, my soul is cast down within me 
... all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me." 
Natural enough may these curses and wailings sound upon 
the lips of a mature Calvinist, but in the mouth of a 
mere babe they strike one as somewhat inappropriate. 

No more likely to foster the blithe spirit one likes to 
associate with childhood were the verses of the Calvinist 
agitator, Zamariel or Chandieu, on the vanity of all things 
human, or those moral quatrains of Pibrac, which for 
seven generations boys and girls were required to commit 
to memory. Two lines of these quatrains : " Love the 
state as thou findest it ; be it royal then love royalty," ^ 
must have stamped themselves upon Charlotte's memory, 
and from them she must have derived inspiration for her 
whole career ; indeed, she might have chosen them as her 
motto. 

Already a regime of chastening and chastising was 
casting a gloom over Charlotte's natural cheerfulness. She 
was rapidly losing her love of play, and at fifteen we 
find her wondering whether a ball were really worth the 
trouble. Yet some sparks of fun still remained to her, 
and she could laugh at the exaggerated seriousness 
of a Protestant pastor denouncing certain wedding 
festivities she had attended. " How he did scold," 

1 Ayme I'estat tel que tu le vois estre : 
S'il est royal, ayme la Royaute. 

Quoted by Montaigne, " ELSsais," Bk. III. : "De la Vanite." 



128 FROM THE CRUSADES 

wrote the maiden ; " why, he nearly mentioned us all by 
name, and yet I assure you we had done nothing to 
deserve such reproaches." 

In 1619 life grew less solitary for Charlotte, for in that 
year her brother Henry brought home to Thouars his 
young bride and cousin, Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne, 
daughter of the Due de Bouillon. Plain, grasping, and, 
above all, ambitious, Marie cannot have been a very 
attractive companion ; yet some good qualities must have 
been hers, for she and Charlotte were speedily united in 
a friendship which endured until Charlotte's death. In- 
deed, it is from the correspondence of the sisters-in-law, 
preserved in the archives of Thouars, that we derive much 
of our information concerning our heroine's career. 

Visits to Paris, too, in company with her mother, who 
was conducting a law-suit there, occasionally broke the 
routine of hfe at Thouars. And, now that Charlotte was 
growing up, came the diversion of various proposals of 
marriage, for Mdlle. de La Tremoille, one of the wealthiest 
heiresses in Europe, was naturally much sought after. 

Not among the Italianate nobles of Marie de Medicis' 
dissolute court was the Duchess likely to find a 
suitable husband for her daughter. Moreover, according 
to her father's will, Charlotte's mate must perforce be a 
Protestant. But French Protestants in those days were 
rapidly dwindling in power, wealth and importance. 
Charlotte's choice, therefore, was very limited ; and so it 
feU out that at the age of twenty-six she was still to 
marry. 

It was doubtless with the object of marrying her 
daughter that in 1626 Madame de La Tremoille took her 
to Holland. At the Hague, Charlotte revisited the scene 
of her infantile gaieties, and wrote to her sister-in-law at 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 129 

Thouars a somewhat doleful letter, in which, after 
mechanically describing the magnificent feting of the 
Persian Ambassador, she moaned over " the horrible 
laws " of the Persians, especially with regard to women, 
over the lack of religious zeal in Flanders, and finally over 
the perplexities of life in general. " More and more is it 
borne in upon me," she groaned, " how difficult a place 
the world is to live in. May God guide us, and 
may He grant unto you, my heart, a full measure of 
contentment." 

The hospitable Dutch court was then sheltering the 
exiled King and Queen of Bohemia, Frederic, Elector 
Palatine of the Rhine, and his fascinating wife, Charles I.'s 
sister, Elizabeth Stuart, known in history as " the Queen 
of Hearts," ^ Elizabeth's husband was the Duchess's 
nephew, and the La Tremoilles soon after their arrival 
joined that distinguished circle gathered round the 
sovereigns in exile. To the match-making Queen it was 
a great advantage to have the hand of a wealthy heiress 
to dispose of, and from among the young English noblemen 
who had flocked to the Hague to do homage to Elizabeth's 
charms, she was not long in selecting a husband for 
Charlotte. Possibly among " the perplexities of life " 
which then afflicted Mdlle, de La Tremoille were the 
rival appeals to her affections of the addresses of James 
Stanley, Lord Strange, and her love for her motherland. 

As for Madame de La Tremoille, she had no doubt 
whatever as to the reception to be given to Lord Strange's 
wooing of her daughter. For James Stanley, besides 
being a staunch Protestant, was son and heir to the Earl 
of Derby, whose vast estates in Lancashire and Cheshire, 
and whose so-called sovereignity of the Isle of Man, 

1 See Sir Henry Wotton's verses to Elizabeth of Bohemia. 
C.R. K 



130 FROM THE CRUSADES 

rendered him one of the greatest and wealthiest of 
EngHsh nobles. The Stanleys, moreover, on the female 
side, were of royal blood, being descended from Mary 
Tudor, daughter of King Henry VH.^ 

The fact that Lord Strange was two years Charlotte's 
junior did not seem to the Duchess any serious objection, 
and she gladly gave her consent to the wedding, which 
was celebrated at the Hague in July. Soon afterwards 
the bride and bridegroom, accompanied by the bride's 
mother, set out for England. 

They reached London in the midst of a court crisis. In 
the previous summer Charles L had wedded his French 
bride, Henrietta Maria, the daughter of King Henry IV. 
The first years of their married life had been one long 
series of disputes, which the King had just now brought 
to a climax by his peremptory dismissal of the Queen's 
French attendants, whom he had ordered to pack up and 
depart at a few days' notice. This summary measure, 
while delighting Londoners and members of Parliament, 
with whom the French papists were most unpopular, 
threw Henrietta Maria into such a fury that she and her 
husband were barely on speaking terms. 

1 The illustrious descent of Charlotte and her husband may be seen 
from the following genealogical table, printed in Horace Walpole's 
' Letters," Cunningham edition, VI. 372, note: — 

Henry VH. 

Charles Brandon, Duke of 
Suttolk. = Mary Tudor. 

L. de Bourbon, William, Anne de Montmorency W. Cecil, Eleanor = Clifford, 
D. de Mont- Pr. of (Constable of France) = Lord Earl of Cumber- 

pensier. Orange. Madeleine de Savoie. Burleigh. land. 

Marie = William the Jeanne = Louis, ist D. Anne = Veie, Margaret = Earl of 
I Silent. de La Tr6moille. E. of Oxford. Derby. 

I III 

charlotte Brabantine de Nassau = Claude, and Elizabeth = William, 6th Earl 

D. de La Tr6moille. of Derby. 

charlotte de La Ti6moille = Jaires, 7th Earl of Derby. 




CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOILLE, COUNTESS OF DERBY 
From a picture by Vandyke 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 131 

Madame de La Tremoille and her daughter, arriving 
only a few days after the departure of the French retinue, 
came in the very nick of time ; for the French nationahty 
and the Protestant faith of Lady Strange and her mother 
at once rendered them popular with both sides in the 
dispute — with the homesick Queen, eager to welcome her 
fellow-countrywomen, and with King and Parliament 
ready to trust these new foreigners because of their 
Protestant religion. 

Charles, therefore, encouraged the new arrivals to stay 
at court, granting them those apartments in St. James's 
Palace which had recently been vacated by the Queen's 
French household. But it must have been some time 
before Lord and Lady Strange and the Duchess Dowager 
could actually take up their abode in these quarters, on 
account of their previous occupants' lack of cleanliness, 
which, we are told, had rendered them totally uninhabit- 
able. Madame de La Tremoille was now appointed Lady 
of the Queen's Bedchamber, a position in which, after 
her return to France in October, 1626, she was suc- 
ceeded by her daughter. 

For some months Lady Strange lived in London, and 
apparently it was not until the autumn of 1627, when her 
husband was associated with his father, the Earl of 
Derby, in the lieutenancy of Lancashire and Cheshire, 
that Lord Strange took his bride to her northern home 
and introduced her to her father-in-law, who was then 
living at Chester. 

With gracious English kindness and old-world courtesy 
the Earl received his daughter-in-law, speaking to her in 
French, calling her " Lady " and " mistress of the house," 
a position he said he wished no other woman to hold. 
With her princely residence of Lathom House Lady 



132 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Strange was delighted, as well she might be, for the 
mansion was one of the finest in England. Indeed, at that 
time everything smiled upon her, and through her 
husband's devotion the world seemed to have grown " a 
less difficult place to live in." " He shows me the utmost 
affection, and God gives us grace to live in much happiness 
and peace of mind," she wrote. Within a year of their 
marriage, without a word from his wife, and despite 
serious financial difficulties in , which his family were 
involved, Lord Strange settled a sum of £2,000 upon his 
lady. This jointure she considered extremely generous, 
especially as only a very small part of her own marriage 
portion had then been paid. It is doubtful whether the 
whole sum of £50,000 promised in her marriage contract 
ever reached her. At any rate, her brother, Duke Henry, 
for some years postponed payment of a great part of it, 
and Charlotte was constrained to write continually to her 
mother and sister-in-law expressing her annoyance that 
she should have brought nothing but expense to a family 
from whom she had received so much kindness. At one 
time she even hinted at the suspicion that her brother was 
trying to possess himself of her fortune, and no doubt she 
was all the more inclined to distrust him when, in 1628, 
he abjured his father's faith, and returned to the Church 
of Rome. 

In La Tremoille's excuse it may be urged that, owing to 
constant civil war, now followed by war with England, his 
estates had become so encumbered that it was difficult 
for him to pay either the capital or the interest of his 
sister's fortune. Moreover, the Duke was certainly not 
a good business man, for we find him selling to Cardinal 
Richelieu the domain of L'lle Bouchard for a sum which 
barely covered the value of the forest timber, and making 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 133 

an equally bad bargain when he parted with a portion of 
the famous forest of Broceliande.^ 

Nevertheless, despite her husband's financial em- 
barrassments, Marie de La Tour was at this very time 
building that magnificent chateau of Thouars which, with 
its four great towers and fine river frontage, dominating 
the country-side for miles around, belies Henry's plea of 
poverty and justifies Tallement des Reaux in charging 
the Duchesse de La Tremoille with ambition. For the 
aspiring Marie de La Tour determined to copy no less a 
personage than that great builder of the previous century, 
Catherine de Medicis, and it was according to the plans 
which Philibert de I'Orme had drawn for the Tuileries 
that the Duchess was now building her castle at Thouars. 
Possibly, however, Marie, more fortunate than Charlotte 
in the payment of her dowry, may have been using her 
own marriage portion for the building of the family 
mansion. The association of her name, rather than that 
of her husband, with the chateau would indicate that such 
was the case, and if so, then the rising of that lordly pile 
on the steep bank of the river Thouet is not inconsistent 
with the Duke's protested poverty. 

Except for these financial cares, Charlotte's early 
married years passed peacefully, disturbed only by those 
natural vicissitudes of life and death which ever attend 
the destinies of mortals. In 1631, her mother died, but 
even so heavy a blow was perhaps easier to bear than the 
vicious courses in which her favourite brother, Frederic, 
Comte de Laval, was indulging, in the Netherlands, 
and in London. In London he had formed a union 
with a woman of the middle class, a Miss Orpe, who, after 
having born him several children, inflicted a heavy blow on 

* Then called Quintin, and afterwards known as the Foret de Lorges. 



134 FROM THE CRUSADES 

the La Tremoille family pride by claiming to be his wife 
and assuming the title of Comtesse de Laval. 

Charlotte first became a mother in January, 1628. 
In that year her son Charles, afterwards Lord Derby, was 
born and there followed in rapid succession eight other 
children, of whom six lived to grow up.^ 

Of English nurses and English nursing Lady Strange 
had no opinion whatever. The English custom of giving 
infants the full use of their limbs, instead of binding them 
tightly on to a cushion, seemed to this Frenchwoman 
utterly barbarous. And one night she was horrified to 
find her baby boy of but three days old lying in his 
cradle sucking his thumb. " Just imagine ! " exclaimed 
this outraged parent in a letter to her sister-in-law. 
And later to her mother she wrote, " Why, in this country 
they put infants of a month or six weeks into robes, 
and I am thought out of my senses because I have not 
provided any dresses for my baby." No doubt poor 
Lady Strange found her opinion of English child-nurture 
only too forcibly confirmed when her baby Charlotte 
died from being overlaid by her nurse. 

Soon after 1631, in order to arrange her mother's affairs, 
Lady Strange undertook a journey to Holland, hoping, 
but vainly as it proved, at the same time to exercise 
some salutary influence over her favourite brother, who 
was then at the Hague. 

Meanwhile, in England, the political horizon was 
darkening, and every day the country was drawing nearer 
to civil war. 

Lord Strange, despite the high office he held — as well 

^ Charlotte, Henrietta Maria, Catherine, Amelia Anna Sophia, 
Edward, William and two other sons, Henry Frederick and James, who 
both died in infancy. See " Stanley Papers," Vol. II., Part III., 
pp cclxxxviii. — ccxcii. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 135 

as being with his father joint lieutenant of Lancashire 
and Cheshire, he was Chamberlain of Chester and Lord 
Lieutenant of North Wales — never took any very active 
part in politics. Only now and again did he attend the 
meetings of Parliament in London. His tastes were 
those of the country gentleman ; and he loved to spend 
his days on the hunting field or in his magnificent houses 
of Lathom and Knowsley, surrounded by his retainers, 
entertaining with princely hospitality large companies 
of friends. 

" The air of London disagrees with him," wrote Lady 
Strange, and glad she was that he did not go there often, 
for, as she added, " in these times there is always some- 
thing to fear." Still for such leaders of the aristocracy 
as were Lord and Lady Strange, it was necessary that 
sometimes they should put in an appearance at court. 
And so, in 1630, we find them both figuring in royal 
pageantry : Charlotte's husband in Ben Jonson's masque, 
" Love's Triumph through Callipolis," where fifteen lovers 
ranged themselves seven and seven aside, with the King 
in the centre, and each with a cupid bearing a lighted 
torch before him. Lord Strange not inappropriately 
representing the secure lover ; Charlotte herself, in 
another masque, was one of a circle of nymphs, who, 
dressed in white, embroidered with silver, sat round the 
Queen in her bower. ^ 

But in the early years of her motherhood such court 
festivities were not greatly to Charlotte's taste ; and she 
preferred to remain quietly at home busily plying her 
needle over those numerous tiny garments necessary for 
her increasing household. 

Then, in 1642, those war clouds which had so long been 

1 Peter Draper, " The House of Stanley " (1864), 77. 



136 FROM THE CRUSADES 

gathering burst, and the King and Pariiament took up 
arms. 

For so peaceable a man as Lord Strange the position 
was extremely difficult. He shared the opinion of 
Lord Kingston, who to the Parliament emissaries is said 
to have replied : " When I take arms with the King against 
the Parliament, or with the Parliament against the King, 
let a cannon bullet divide me between them." ^ 

At first, in his own county of Lancashire, Lord Strange 
endeavoured to arrange a compromise between the 
disputants. Then, having failed, he yielded to his wife's 
influence and declared for the King. 

Faithful to her early teaching, and believing strongly 
in the divine right of kings, to Lady Strange the support 
of royalty was a religion. Pibrac's line, learnt long ago 
at Thouars, " Love the state as thou findest it, if it be 
royal, love royalty," she had never forgotten. And now, 
putting aside all considerations of personal safety on her 
own, her husband's and her children's behalf, she urged 
Lord Strange to join the King, who was then at York. 

James Stanley, showing now as always perfect confi- 
dence in his wife's judgment, adopted her counsel. But 
Charlotte, though she might guide the course of her 
husband's action, could not convert the country gentleman 
into a general or a soldier ; and throughout the civil war 
the career of Lord Strange, who, in this year 1642, by 
his father's death became Earl of Derby, though distin- 
guished by admirable courage and crowned by a martyr's 
death, was little but a series of misfortunes and failures. 

His attempts to raise Lancashire in the King's cause, 
and to take Manchester and Warrington were attended 
with ill success. The troops, which he had raised and 

1 See " Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson " (1906), 120. 




JAMES STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY 
Husband of Charlotte de La Tremoille 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 137 

equipped at his own expense, were almost everywhere 
defeated, and in May, 1643, leaving his army in command 
of Lord Molyneux, who was even unhappier than his 
predecessor, Derby, went to York, to beg the Queen to 
place at his disposal some of the reinforcements she had 
recently brought from Holland. 

Meanwhile Lady Derby dashed off a few hurried lines 
to her cousin, Prince Rupert,^ whom she knew to be in 
Staffordshire, but two days' ride from Lathom, entreating 
him to come to their aid. " Take pity upon my husband, 
my children and me," she wrote, " for we are ruined for 
ever if God and your Highness have not compassion upon 
us." In a very different tone was this hurried note from 
the letter, which, a year previously, soon after Prince 
Rupert's landing at Tynemouth, Charlotte had written 
to her kinsman. Then she had done no more than 
request the Prince to use his influence with the King 
to induce him to send reinforcements to Lancashire. 

While Derby was with the Queen at York, he heard 
that his subjects in the Isle of Man, having revolted 
from his rule, were negotiating with the Scots. The latter 
were then planning an invasion of England, in which 
they hoped to make Man their basis of attack upon the 
English coast. 

In deciding, after some perplexity, to cross over to 

1 Lady Strange was first cousin to Rupert's father, the Elector 
Palatine. 

William of Orange. 



Charlotte Brabantine = Claude de La Trdmoille. Louise Julienne = 

I the Elector Palatine. 

I I 

Charlotte, Lady Strange Frdd^ric, Elector Palatine 

(afterwards Lady Derby). = Elizabeth Stuart. 



Prince Rupert. 



138 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Man and to leave Lathom to the mercy of the ParUamen- 
tarian army then approaching it, Lord Derby must have 
known he had his wife's approval, for Charlotte would 
never have allowed her own or her family's safety to 
stand in the way of the defence of the royal cause. But, 
indeed, her position was dangerous. For no sooner was 
the Earl out of the country, than the Governor of 
Manchester sent an envoy to demand that Lady Derby 
should submit to his terms or surrender her house. 
Although Charlotte replied proudly that it suited her 
to do neither, the reflection that Lathom was but ill 
armed and provisioned reduced even a La Tremoille to 
compromise. And so she agreed to give up to the Round- 
heads such lands as were outside her park wall, stipulating 
that she should be permitted to remain in peace in her 
house and to retain a sufficient garrison to protect herself 
and her household from the insults of the soldiers. 

Lady Derby could not have made a wiser move, for 
in view of the siege, which she wisely saw to be inevitable, 
she was now able to concentrate all her attention on the 
defence of her house and grounds, while, by the surrender 
of her outlying possessions she gained time- — a respite of 
no less than eight months — which she busily occupied 
in strengthening her garrison, organising her defence, 
and provisioning Lathom. 

We must now describe the position and structure of 
that mansion, which was about to sustain one of the most 
famous sieges in English history. Lathom House was 
so spacious that at one time it is said to have accommo- 
dated no less than three Kings and their retinues. Yet, 
in spite of its size, all writers agree in describing it as 
one of the most defensible dwellings in the kingdom. 
Girt about with high walls two yards in thickness, and 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 139 

protected by nine lofty towers, it lay in a hollow, 
surrounded by hills, sloping so rapidly as to render it 
impossible to construct any fortifications on them or 
to work artillery with impunity from the castle walls. 
Beyond the ramparts was a moat eight yards wide and 
two yards deep, bordered by a strong wall of palisades, 
and only to be crossed from strongly fortified postern 
gates at the discretion of the garrison. In the midst of 
the house was a high building, known as the Eagle Tower, 
and commanding all the rest. The gatehouse was 
high and strong, with a tower on each side of it. In 
the towers and on the ramparts were placed eight or 
nine small pieces of ordnance and some murderers, or 
large blunderbusses, which moved upon a pivot and a rest. 

Throughout her precious eight months' respite, steadily 
and secretly Lady Derby assembled her garrison and 
gathered in her provisions, the men came in at night 
bearing victuals and ammunition ; yet, despite all the 
Countess's efforts, there was a scarcity of the latter 
throughout the siege, and Lathom's defenders had always 
to be sparing of their powder and shot. 

In the end the garrison numbered 300. These men 
the Countess divided into six companies under six captains, 
chosen for their courage and integrity, and each responsible 
for the training of his company. Over them all Lady Derby 
appointed as major a Scotsman, one Captain Farmer, 
who was very skilful in war, having served in the Low 
Countries.^ But Captain Farmer, in his turn, received 
his orders from the Countess, for over household and 
garrison Charlotte reigned supreme. 

So stealthily had all these works been carried out that 
the Parliamentarian troops, who, under Colonel Rigby, 

^ He afterwards fell at Marston Moor. 



140 FROM THE CRUSADES 

were constantly harrying the neighbourhood, had not 
the remotest idea of the increase in the garrison, nor of 
the extent of the defences of Lathom House. 

Some idea, however, of what had been taking place 
dawned upon the Roundhead general when, early in 
February, 1644, a reconnoitring party, having approached 
to within gunshot of the walls, was welcomed with such 
a volley of musketry that several of their number were 
slain and one was taken prisoner. On the following day, 
February 24th, a council of war was held at Manchester, 
and it was decided to open a regular attack on the mansion. 
The next day being Sunday, the pulpits of Wigan, the 
nearest town to Lathom and but six miles distant, 
resounded with anathemas hurled at " the wicked woman 
of Babylon," who was opposing the progress " of the 
Lord's chosen people," and one preacher, converting his 
sermon into an announcement of the siege, which was 
to open on the morrow, blew a trumpet blast from the 
fiftieth chapter of Jeremiah, calling on the people to put 
themselves " in array against Babylon round about " : 
" all ye that bend the bow," he cried, " shoot at her, 
spare no arrows ; for she hath sinned against the Lord." 

The Puritan preacher doubtless hoped a very few Sab- 
baths hence to preach another sermon, taking for his text 
the next verse : " Shout against her round about : she 
hath given her hand : her foundations are fallen, her 
walls are thrown down : for it is the vengeance of the 
Lord : take vengeance upon her." 

But " the woman of Babylon " was not to be so easily 
vanquished ; and as long as Charlotte de La Tremoille 
commanded within the walls of Lathom, they stood 
firm against the forces of the Parliament. 

Of the details of this memorable siege we are fortunate 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 141 

in possessing a graphic account written by an eye-witness, 
one of the Countess's Httle band of defenders. This 
narrative is to be found printed at the end of Bohn's 
edition of the " Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson." Two 
manuscripts of it still exist, one in the Ashmolean Museum , 
Oxford,^ another" among the Harleian MSS. in the British 
Museum.^ Which of Lathom's defenders wrote this story 
is a question which has been much disputed. It may 
have been Edward Halsall, a youth of only seventeen 
at the time of the siege, or, more probably, a maturer 
soldier, Chissenhall by name, one of Charlotte's captains.^ 

It was on Tuesday, February 27th,* that Lathom 
was completely invested. Then the troops of Sir 
Thomas Fairfax encamped round about the house at the 
distance of a mile or two. But before the actual attack 
began, a week passed in negotiations between Lady Derby 
and Parliamentary envoys. One set of proposals after 
another she refused, replying finally that she declined 
all their articles, and was truly happy in that they refused 
hers, for she would rather hazard her life than offer the 
like again. Then she added defiantly that, though a 
woman and a foreigner, divorced from her friends and 
robbed of her estate, she was ready to receive the enemy's 
utmost violence, trusting in God for protection and 
deliverance. 

The next morning^ when the Countess's household 
awoke, it seemed to them that the siege had begun in 
real earnest. For during the night, at about a musket- 
shot's distance from the house, on the sloping ground 

1 A Wood MS. d. 16. 

2 No. 2043. 

8 Another account of the siege may be found in the " Memoirs of 
John Seacombe " (1821). 
* N.S. March 7th. 
6 March 6th O.S. 



142 FROM THE CRUSADES 

surrounding it, the Parliamentarians had been throwing 
up earthworks for the protection of the ordnance which 
were to fire upon the towers of Lathom. These earth- 
works, during the following days, were continued by the 
people of the country-side, who, much against their 
will, had been pressed into the Parliamentarian service 
by Fairfax and his colonels. Apparently the sympathies 
of these country folk were royalist. And although, 
instigated by Fairfax, six of them waited on Lady Derby 
to represent to her that it would be for their benefit if 
she would consent to treat with the Parliamentarians, 
when she explained to them her reasons for resisting, 
they went away crying : " God save the King and the 
Earl of Derby ! " 

Fairfax, however, still delayed to open the attack, 
either because he regarded the siege as hopeless, or 
because this chivalrous general disliked making war upon 
a woman. So, on Monday, March nth, he renewed 
negotiations, which proved as fruitless as the earlier ones 
had been. And on the following day it was the besieged 
who opened the attack. A hundred foot, supported by 
twelve horsemen, boldly sallied forth from Lathom gates, 
went right up to the enemy's works without firing a shot, 
then, proceeding to fire, drove them from their holes, 
slaying thirty, taking forty arms, one drum and six 
prisoners without any injury to themselves. 

These sallies repeated on succeeding days inflicted great 
hurt on the besiegers, and also unhappily on the poor 
country folk at work in the trenches. The enemy 
replied by attempting to bombard the house. But the 
configuration of the land rendered their cannon useless. 

" On Tuesday night," writes our eye-witness, " they 
brought up one piece of cannon. On Wednesday morning 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 143 

they gave us some sport. They then played their cannon 
three shots, the ball a twenty-four pounder. They first 
tried the wall, which, being found proof without yielding 
or showing the least impression {sic) , they afterwards shot 
higher to beat down the pinnacles or turrets, or else to 
please the women that came to see the spectacle." 

Dismayed by the failure of his bombardment, Fairfax 
made another attempt to bring the Countess to terms, 
and this time he thought to possess an infallible argument 
in a letter from Lord Derby which had just reached him. 
The Earl had returned from Man, and, alarmed by the 
news of his wife's danger, he asked Fairfax to permit the 
Countess and her children, should it seem good to her, to 
leave the house and proceed to a place of safety. But 
Lord Derby, when he penned that request, had no idea of 
his wife's spirit. To such a Minerva " it did not seem 
good " to leave her home in the hour of danger, for 
Charlotte knew full well that she was the soul of the 
defence, and that in her absence Lathom would soon be 
taken. So, thanking Sir Thomas for his courtesy, the 
Countess professed her willingness to adopt her Lord's 
suggestion, but only when she herself was fully persuaded 
that such really was his pleasure. The blockade was 
then resumed. But soon afterwards, Lady Derby, 
taking advantage of a sally, contrived to get two 
messengers through the enemy's lines, one bearing a 
letter to her husband, and the other one to Prince Rupert. 
The latter was written in a very different tone from the 
despairing request she had addressed to her kinsman but 
a year ago. By now Charlotte de La Tremoille had 
proved her mettle, and this, her third appeal to her 
cousin, reveals a serenity and strength which is truly 
admirable in a lone woman and a foreigner at the 



144 FROM THE CRUSADES 

head of a small garrison, besieged by an army of 
3,000 men. 

" Sir," wrote the Countess, " I make bold to write 
these lines to your Highness to implore you very humbly 
to be so kind as to converse with the bearer of this letter 
touching the condition of this country, which has great 
need of your presence, as your Highness will be able to 
gather for yourself from the words of my messenger, in 
whose hands I leave it, while I entreat you believe me 
more than any one. Sir, the very humble and very 
obedient and very faithful servant of your Highness. 

" C. DE Tremaille." ^ 

Though the Countess was thus reduced to imploring aid 
from her husband and her cousin, the besiegers were 
beginning to despair of ever forcing her to surrender by 
human means at any rate. And so they resolved to 
beseech the divinity to intervene on their side. " All 
ministers and other well-affected persons " of Lancashire 
were called upon to commend the Parliament's case to 
God. Meanwhile, those " well-affected " persons who 
had been bombarding Lathom desisted from action, in 
order, as our eye-witness puts it, " to sleep out four days 
in the pious exercises of prayer and supplication." 

The Countess and her household used this respite to 
prepare a somewhat rude awakening for these pious 
sleepers. And, on April loth, the besieged sallied forth 
and attacked the enemy's lines with such vigour, that all 
their cannon were nailed, fifty of their men slain, sixty 
arms taken, with one set of colours and three drums, all 
with the loss to the assailants of only one man. The 
besiegers' most formidable weapon, however, Charlotte's 
men failed to damage : the Parliamentarians had recently 

1 Charlotte's usual way of writing her name. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 145 

brought from London a huge mortar, which was a form of 
artillery but newly invented. The Lathom soldiers did 
their very best to silence this redoubtable engine of war ; 
they nailed it, and battered it with smith's hammers, but 
all to no purpose, for its mouth was too wide to be stopped. 
And for the next thirteen days the mortar was destined 
to inflict considerable damage on the house and its 
occupants, but not nearly such serious injury as it might 
have caused had the firing of it been properly under- 
stood. Not even Lathom's stout ramparts could have 
stood firm against shells and stones fifty-three inches 
in diameter, had they been fired so as to describe that 
peculiar curve which rendered the mortar the most 
deadly engine of attack upon a house lying in a hollow 
like that now being assailed. The inexperience of the 
gunners, however, caused the balls generally to follow a 
horizontal direction, and only now and again to do 
any serious damage. Once a ball fell into the dining- 
room where the Countess and her children sat at meat, 
and twice shells entered Lady Derby's bed-chamber ; 
but almost miraculously on neither occasion was anyone 
hurt. And it was only v/ith great difficulty that the 
Countess could be persuaded to change her room, which 
seemed especially open to attack, for once previously, 
before the mortar's arrival, a saker bullet had come in 
through her window. 

But nothing dismayed the Countess or shook her 
determination to continue her resistance. Never would 
she yield as long as a roof remained over her head, 
she protested. And at length Fairfax, who was badly 
wanted in other parts of the country, grew tired of so 
unprofitable an enterprise. On April 24th he marched 
off, leaving the conduct of the siege to Colonel Rigby, a 

C.R. L 



146 FROM THE CRUSADES 

gruff, uncouth attorney, very different from his courteous 
and cultured superior. 

In keeping with Rigby's character was the insolent 
tone of the message by which, on the day after his 
general's departure, he called upon Lady Derby to sur- 
render before eight o'clock on the following afternoon. 
But in the Countess, Rigby had met his match. Haughtily 
tearing up the Colonel's missive, she told his messenger 
that as a reward for his pains he deserved to be hanged 
at her gates, and that to the traitor who sent him he 
might say that neither house, goods nor persons should 
he have, that rather than fall into his hands she would 
set fire to the place and consign herself, her children and 
her soldiers to the flames. 

These were bold words ; and on hearing them the 
garrison shouted : " We will die for his Majesty and your 
Honour. God save the King! " 

For herself. Lady Derby knew no fear. Yet, despite 
the brave defiance she had sent to Rigby, there were 
moments when she trembled for her children. " The 
little ladies," writes the eye-witness, " had stomachs 
to digest cannon, but they, no more than the stoutest 
soldiers, had hearts for grenades." 

So, no sooner was the messenger departed than the 
Countess summoned a council of war, and told her 
captains that something must be done to stop the mouth 
of the mortar. As the result of these deliberations 
another sally was made, which was to prove the boldest 
and bravest of the siege. At four o'clock the next 
morning, while the besiegers were asleep. Lady Derby 
herself, with most of her garrison, issued forth from the 
gates. They approached the mortar and took possession 
of it ; then the soldiers, encouraged by their gallant 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 147 

Countess, dragged it inside the ramparts. There in the 
courtyard, Hke a dead Hon, lay the monster that had 
frightened the brave defenders of Lathom from their 
meat and sleep. " Everyone had his eye and his foot 
upon it, shouting and rejoicing as merrily as they used 
to do with their ale and their bagpipes." 

And even Charlotte de La Tremoille, never very joyful 
at the best of times, and grimmer than ever now after 
eight anxious weeks of suffering — even Charlotte was 
jubilant, and in her gladness she instructed her chaplain, 
the Reverend Mr. Rutter, to hold a public thanks- 
giving. 

Rigby, too, had arranged a thanksgiving for that day, 
and had invited the people of the countryside to come 
and see the walls of Lathom House fall beneath the 
mortar's volleys of shot and shell ; but now his great 
battering-ram lay silent and secure within the enemy's 
gates, and there remained for the Colonel nothing but 
rage and mortification. In despair he appealed to the 
County Committee to send him reinforcements. " We are 
obliged to drive them back as often as five or six times 
in the same night," he wrote. " These constant alarms, 
the strength of the garrison, and the numerous losses 
we have had, oblige the soldiers to guard the trenches 
sometimes two nights running. My son does this duty 
as well as the youngest officer. And for my own part, 
I am ready to sink under the weight, having worked 
beyond my strength." 

In response to Rigby's request Colonel Holland was 
sent from Manchester with reinforcements. But these 
new troops seem to have been singularly ineffective ; 
and we read that after the mortar's capture until the 
raising of the siege on May 26th, the garrison enjoyed a 

L 2 



148 FROM THE CRUSADES 

continued calm, so that they were scarce sensible of a 
siege save for the restraint put upon their liberty. 

On May 23rd Rigby sent another and the last of his 
insolent messages, to which Lady Derby replied as 
defiantly as before, that unless the enemy would treat 
with her lord, they should never have her or any of her 
friends alive. 

The Countess, when she sent this defiance, had no idea 
that her lord was then close at hand. But that very 
night one of her scouts returned to Lathom and told how 
Prince Rupert was in Cheshire, and with him the Earl, 
and that they were coming to raise the siege. 

From more than one quarter Prince Rupert had been 
urged to go to his gallant cousin's rescue ; her husband 
had implored the Prince's help, so had the Royalist 
commander of Chester, and finally the King himself 
wrote that while desirous not to interfere with his 
nephew's plans, he would be glad to learn that the 
Countess of Derby was out of danger. Thus it fell out 
that the Prince, having been joined by Derby, was now 
marching to Lathom. 

The news that on May 25th Rupert had taken Stockport 
reached the besiegers on the following day. That night 
they broke up their camp and vanished in the darkness, 
so quietly that the inhabitants of Lathom knew nothing 
of their departure ; and the Countess, when she awoke 
on the morning of the 27th, beheld with immense astonish- 
ment and unspeakable relief that the enemy had departed. 

On the evening of the following day the Earl and his 
Countess were reunited. Between the Parliamentarians' 
flight and Derby's return had intervened the Royalist 
capture of Bolton-le-Moors, where Stanley and Rupert 
wreaked their revenge on Rigby and his men for all the 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 149 

suffering they had for eight weeks been inflicting on the 
Countess and her children. 

The Earl, on his return to his damaged home and to 
his brave wife and children, had been preceded by Sir 
Richard Crane, who came on the part of Prince Rupert 
to lay at his courageous cousin's feet twenty-two flags 
captured from the enemy at Bolton, and to announce 
to her that the Prince was pleased to accept her invitation 
to spend a few days at Lathom on his way to York. 
Charlotte, therefore, made haste to prepare to receive 
her princely cousin with as good cheer as might be, in 
a house strangely shattered by the siege, and still bearing 
traces of the work of the enemy's cannon. 

Rupert was then at the height of his renown. His 
arrogance and hot-headedness had not yet alienated the 
cavaliers, who, in this year 1644, regarded the King's 
nephew as almost invincible. Lady Derby and her cousin 
must have been well acquainted by repute, for it was 
the Prince's mother, the fascinating Elizabeth Stuart, 
who, at the court of the Hague, had arranged Charlotte's 
marriage ; but at that time young Rupert himself was 
away at the University of Ley den. Probably, therefore, 
the cousins never met until that glad summer day, 
when the Prince of five-and-twenty, the handsomest and 
bravest commander of the time, rode proudly through 
the battered gates of Lathom to congratulate, in a voice 
half broken with emotion, his valiant kinswoman on the 
glorious victory she had won. 

Many a noble and many a royal guest had in times past 
been royally entertained beneath Lathom's hospitable 
roof. But now, with the resources of her house all 
wasted by the siege, with her jewels pawned to raise 
money for the defence of her home, with robes of state 



150 FROM THE CRUSADES 

laid aside, and triumphs of costume and drapery for- 
gotten, Charlotte found court ceremonial impossible. 
Yet never was guest welcomed with greater rejoicing, and 
never did more fervent thanksgivings rise from the 
chapel than on the occasion of Prince Rupert's coming 
to Lathom. 

During this brief visit the Prince was busily occupied 
in arranging for the repair and strengthening of the 
fortifications of the house, and in rewarding the officers 
who had so gallantly served their King and their lady. 
Before his departure, Rupert advised the Countess to 
retire with her children to the Isle of Man, enjoining her 
to take great care of her sons and daughters, for, he said, 
" the children of such a father and mother will one day 
render to their King as much service as yours has received 
from you." 

It was not, however, until more than three weeks after 
the Royalist rout at Marston Moor that Charlotte 
adopted her cousin's counsel. The battle was fought on 
July 2nd ; and on the 30th Lady Derby and her children 
crossed over to the Isle of Man. Whether the Earl 
accompanied them we do not know. But, if he did, his 
stay in the island was brief, for in September we find 
him back at Lathom, which was again being besieged by 
the Parliamentarians. The siege dragged on for over 
a year. Not until December, 1645, did the gallant 
garrison surrender. By that time the Earl had rejoined 
his family in the Isle of Man, and it was there that they 
heard of the wanton destruction of their beautiful home, 
how it had been razed to the ground, all its valuable 
furniture and works of art scattered or demolished, and 
only a few timber buildings left to mark the site of the 
lordly Lathom. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 151 

For the Earl and Countess of Derby, as indeed for all 
Royalists, the next five years, from Fathom's fall in 
December, 1644, until the King's execution in January, 
1649, were full of suffering and anxiety. Most of this 
time the Countess spent in the Isle of Man. And from 
her letters to her sister-in-law, Marie de la Tour, Duchesse 
de La Tremoille, we learn that to grief over national 
affairs were added family troubles. These arose chiefly 
from the conduct of her eldest son, Charles, Lord Strange, 
then a youth of eighteen. Only a year after Lathom's 
fall, Charles departed secretly from the Isle of Man, and, 
crossing over to Ireland, made his way thence to Paris. 
He left behind him letters saying that he was going to his 
Aunt, the Duchess. And to her Lady Derby wrote, 
imploring that for her sister's sake she would receive the 
truant kindly and be a mother to him, " all the more," 
she adds, " because what he has done has offended 
Monsieur his father and me. If he obeys you he will the 
more readily obtain our pardon." 

Such kindness the Countess was entitled to expect from 
her sister-in-law ; for, as we shall see in the next chapter, 
many years earlier the Derbys had hospitably received 
into their London house the Duchess's own runaway son, 
Henri Charles de La Tremoille. Marie de la Tour, 
therefore, was only too willing to grant her sister's 
request, winning her gratitude and that of her husband, 
who wrote to Madame de La Tremoille that he could 
never sufficiently thank her for the care she had deigned 
to take of his truant son. 

Their first-born's evasion must have been a great 
disappointment to Lord and Lady Derby. For, from his 
cradle they had spared no pains, by dint of careful tuition 
and advice, to fit him for the exalted position he was one 



152 FROM THE CRUSADES 

day to occupy. Among the Stanley papers is a volume^ 
of rules and aphorisms written by Lord Derby for his 
son's benefit, and dealing with every phase of behaviour, 
and every vicissitude of life, health, table manners, 
expenditure, the regulations of a household, and especially 
the choice of a wife. " Choose not a dwarf or a fool," 
Charles was advised, " for the children of one will be 
pigmies, and the other your disgrace by a continual 
clack; there is nothing more fulsome than a she-fool." 
Looking still further ahead, the Earl admonishes his son 
to bring up his children with " learning and obedience, 
yet without austerity, praising them openly, and repre- 
hending them secretly." 

But, above all things, Charles is enjoined to cultivate 
home life and to avoid travel, especially in Italy, because 
in that country " is nothing to be learned but pride, vice, 
luxury, and atheism, with a few useless words of no 
profit." " For words," the Earl insists, " you have no 
need to travel, your mother having conferred on you the 
benefit of her language." 

But travel was the one thing Charles Stanley desired, 
partly, no doubt, in order to escape from his father's 
persistent aphorisms and his tutor's virtuous precepts ; 
and so, eluding the vigilance of the learned Mr. Rutter, 
he exchanged the monotony of life in the Isle of Man for 
the livelier atmosphere of Paris. 

Eventually Lord Strange was to win his father's for- 
giveness, and to prove a loyal and affectionate son. But 
with his mother henceforth he was never on the best of 
terms. Charlotte could not recover from her disappoint- 
ment at her boy's truancy. To her sister-in-law she 

1 Part III., 1S67, 42 et seq. " The Stanley Papers " have been 
pubUshed by the Chetham Societ}'. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 153 

wrote of him as " a useless creature," and one from whom 
all she could expect was that he should eschew evil 
practices, and avoid following the example of his uncle, 
the Comte de Laval, Charlotte's favourite brother, who 
three years earlier had died from wounds received in a 
duel.^ Nevertheless, for this " useless creature " Lady 
Derby was careful to draw up a programme of studies, 
to pursue him with reams of judicious advice, to scheme 
for his worldly advancement by asking the Duchess to 
present him to Henrietta Maria and the Prince of Wales, 
who were then in Paris, and to plan sending him to learn 
the art of war from his kinsman, the great Turenne. 

Soon, however, the Countess's attention was diverted 
from her truant son by a new danger which threatened 
her husband. Towards the close of 1646 negotiations 
were in progress between the Scots, whom the King had 
joined at Newcastle, and the members of the Long 
Parliament. As part of the projected settlement it was 
proposed to proclaim an amnesty for the King's sup- 
porters ; but from that pardon certain eminent Royalists 
were to be excluded, and among them was Lord 
Derby. 

With her usual indefatigable energy, the Countess 
resolved to undertake the hazardous and difficult journey 
to London, there to petition the Parliament to include 
her husband in the Amnesty Bill. Having waited long 
and anxiously for a passport, she received it in mid- 
January. And then, in tempestuous weather, and 
embarking in an unseaworthy boat. Lady Derby bade 
farewell to her fearful husband and children, and after a 
forty-eight hours' passage, landed safely in Lancashire. 

' Fought at Venice with Le Coudray Montpensier in February, 
1642. 



154 I^RO^ THE CRUSADES 

There she spent a fortnight procuring money for her 
further journey. On March loth she was at Chelsea ; 
and in London or its neighbourhood she remained for 
over a year negotiating with the ParHament, and not 
without success. 

Some weeks after her arrival she was able to write to 
her sister-in-law, " that the Lords have already struck 
out Monsieur your brother-in-law's name from the list of 
exceptions. ... It passed without any opposition, but 
the Commons have done nothing, as it has not been sent 
to them yet from the Lords ; but I am encouraged to 
hope that, with God's help, there will be no difficulty." 

In the autumn of this year, probably owing to Lady 
Derby's intervention, one-fifth of the Earl's estate, which 
had been confiscated by Parliament, was granted to his 
children. The Manor of Knowsley, with its house, lands 
and appurtenances, was included in this restoration, and 
thither the Earl sent his daughters, Catherine and 
Amelia, to reside at Knowsley under the protection of 
Sir Thomas Fairfax, in order that they might keep 
possession of the house and receive that part of 
their father's income which Parliament had granted 
them. 

It was in September, 1647, that Lady Derby twice 
visited the King at Hampton Court. Of her second 
visit she writes : " He is hopeful about his affairs. The 
Princes, his children, see him two or three times a week ; 
they are living only three miles from Hampton Court, 
the finest of his houses." 

While thus earnestly engaged in matters which so 
vitally concerned her husband and children. Lady Derby 
never lost interest in the doings of her relatives in France. 
Her heart swelled with family pride when her brother. 




CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOILLE, COUNTESS OF DERBY, WITH HER 

HUSBAND AND THEIR DAUGHTER, CATHERINE 

From a picture by Vandyke, in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 155 

Duke Henry, at the Council of Munster^ in 1648, laid 
claim to the kingdom of Naples." 

But her pride fell when, shortly afterwards, her dead 
brother's mistress, Miss Orpe, claimed his estate and 
assumed the title of Comtesse de Laval. ^ Miss Orpe was 
connected with the English Royal household, and in the 
suit she brought against the house of La Tremoille was 
protected by Queen Henrietta Maria. Despite this 
powerful patronage, however, " that woman," as the 
Countess described the plaintiff, lost her case, and the 
Laval estate was divided between Count Frederic's 
brother and sister. 

While she was in London, the Countess was writing 
to her sister-in-law long lamentations over the woeful 
plight to which the Parliament's government had reduced 
her adopted land. " On every hand," she wrote, " were 
discontent and disagreement, falling out between Lords 
and Commons, and between the Parliament and the 
army, but worst of all the abuse of religion, the disregard 
of God's commandments, books printed which deny the 
Holy Ghost, the Lord's Prayer neglected, the Sacraments 
administered according to the fancy of the administrator, 
any one allowed to preach, even women, baptism thought 
nothing of, and not administered to children, and worse 
things which make all who have any religion left shudder." 

In the spring of 1648 lack of pence compelled Lady 

1 Summoned to adjust the conflicting demands of the numerous 
Princes engaged in the Thirty Years War. 

2 Through his ancestress, Anne de Laval, granddaughter of Fr^d^ric, 
King of Naples, and wife of Fran9ois de La Tremoille (see ante, p. 87). 
For two centuries the kings of France had claimed to be kings of Naples. 
They now abrogated their claim in favour of the La Tremoilles, who 
continued to assert theirs down to the end of the eighteenth century. 
And in virtue of this pretended right the eldest son of the house hence- 
forth (until 1 81 5) was styled Prince de Tarente. See " Les La 
Tremoilles pendant cinq Siecles," IV., 125 et seq. 

^ See ante, p. 134. 



156 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Derby to leave London without having obtained her 
object, for the Commons had not yet undertaken to 
include her husband in the Amnesty Bill. But she 
hoped much from the divisions among her enemies. 
These hopes were destined to disappointment. 

On her way back to the Isle of Man, the Countess 
visited her daughters at Knowsley. In February, 1649, 
she was back again in the Island. And there she and her 
husband heard of the King's execution. 

For this event they had long been prepared. Years 
before, at the time of Strafford's death, ^ Lord Derby had 
described the Parliament as " wolves, that, after their 
first tasting of man's blood, grow bold, and mad of more 
. . . worse than beasts, they make noe difference of 
drinkes ; for they now become ravenous of royall blood." 

It was not until six months after the King's execution 
that Lady Derby's petition to the Parliament received 
any definite answer. Then, on July 12th, Lieutenant- 
General Ireton, on the Parliament's behalf, proposed to 
the Earl, that in return for the peaceable possession of 
half his estate, Derby should surrender the Isle of Man. 

The vehemence with which the Earl rejected this 
proposal suggests that Charlotte was responsible for the 
terms of his reply, which were remarkably like those in 
which she had been wont to answer the envoys of Fairfax 
and Rigby during the siege of Lathom. 

" I scorn your proffers, disdain your favour, and abhor 
your treason," wrote the Earl, " and am so far from 
delivering up this Island to your advantage, that I will 
keep it to the utmost of my power and your destruction. 
Take this for your final answer and forbear any further 
solicitations ; for if you trouble me with any more 

* May, 1641. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 157 

messages on this occasion I will burn the paper and 
hang the bearer. This is the immutable resolution and 
shall be the undoubted practice of him who accounts 
it his chiefest glory to be 

" His Majesty's most loyal and obedient servant, 

" Derby." ^ 

This virulent defiance having convinced the Parliament 
of the vanity of all attempts at negotiation, they then 
proceeded by force of arms to try and conquer the Island. 

But for some time the Earl had been collecting and 
equipping a fleet, and with this ever active and efficient 
little navy, he continued to guard the Island from Round- 
head attacks, so that Man became a sure and safe refuge 
for Royalist refugees, whom, in spite of their poverty. 
Lord and Lady Derby hospitably entertained at Castle 
Rushen. 

The story of these years, of the straits to which the 
Countess was reduced, even in order to clothe her waiting- 
women, of the hair -breadth escapes of her husband 
and his retainers from the guns of the Parliament's 
vessels constantly hovering round the coast, forms one 
of the most thrilling chapters in the history of Charlotte 
de La Tremoille's romantic career. 

So much care and anxiety now had their natural 
effect even on the Countess's vigorous constitution ; 
she fell ill, and for a time her life was despaired of. So 
beset was she by dangers and difficulties that, on her 
recovery from seven weeks' illness, she wrote to her 
sister-in-law that " had it been God's will," she would 
have been well satisfied to quit " this miserable world." 
At the same time she mourns over the condition of her 
adopted land, in which the sects were increasing daily, 

1 " Stanley Papers," Part III. Vol. I., cliv. 



158 FROM THE CRUSADES 

where the Koran was printed with permission, where 
it was common to deny both God and Jesus Christ, and to 
beheve only in the spirit of the Universe, where baptism 
was made a joke of, where a Puritan minister maintained 
openly in church that there was no greater divinity than 
himself, and that, as he was not God, therefore God did 
not exist. 

In another letter Lady Derby related how one of the 
Earl's retainers, returning from Scotland, described the 
burning of sorcerers who declared that they were always 
with Cromwell when he fought. Another, in prison at 
Edinburgh, affirmed that he had been present when 
Cromwell renounced his baptismal vow. 

Many other equally slanderous tales did the Countess 
repeat for the benefit of her sister-in-law. Perhaps some 
of them were not without foundation. Everyone knows 
that during that century hundreds of witches and wizards 
were burnt, especially in Scotland, and that under torture 
no statement was too wild for those poor wretches to make. 
But the majority of these stories were undoubtedly mere 
inventions, chiefly significant as showing that Cavaliers 
and Puritans, like many politicians of the present day, were 
only too eager to credit the most absurd tales told at the 
expense of their opponents. 

After awhile the Parliament, having failed to capture 
the Isle of Man b}^ their war vessels, attempted to wring 
its surrender from the stalwart Derby by ill-treatment 
of his daughters. Catherine and Amelia were removed 
from Knowsley to Liverpool, where they were lodged in 
a miserable, ill-ventilated house, strictly watched, and 
not allowed to go a few miles from their abode without 
permission. While the Parliament thus held the Earl's 
daughters as hostages, they sent word to their father that 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 159 

if he would surrender Man the ladies should be set at 
liberty. But this stratagem was no more successful than 
previous devices had been in bringing the proud Earl to 
submission ; and Derby answered that his children should 
never be redeemed by disloyalty. 

While doubtless approving of her husband's reply, 
Charlotte's maternal heart bled at the news of her 
daughters' sufferings. " I hear they are bearing it 
bravely," she wrote to the Duchess, " and I have no 
doubt this is true of the eldest ; but my daughter Amelia 
is delicate and timid, and is undergoing medical treat- 
ment by order of Monsieur de Mayerne." ^ 

In the midst of her fears for her daughters another 
blow fell upon Lady Derby. She heard that her son, 
who was in Holland, was about to marry a Mdlle. Rupa, 
a young German lady, high born but penniless. In 
the present state of the family fortunes such a match 
was not to be dreamt of. And to prevent it the Countess 
immediately set out for Holland, by way of Scotland. 
But there her progress was arrested. For, landing in 
Kirkcudbright, she found herself in the presence of an 
English army which was marching to Dunbar ; then she 
discovered that without a passport it was impossible for 
her to continue her journey ; and, after a fortnight spent 
in vainly endeavouring to obtain one, she was reduced 
to returning to Man. 

Lord Strange married Mdlle. Rupa, and then attempted 
to compensate for his wife's lack of fortune by obtaining 
from the Parliament a portion of his father's confiscated 
revenue. With this object Lord and Lady Strange 
came to London. Their negotiations with the Parliament, 

1 Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573 — 1655), a Genevese who 
had been physician to Charles I. 



i6o FROM THE CRUSADES 

which Lord Derby described as " going over to the rebels," 
drove their parents into a fury, and no doubt confirmed 
the Countess in her opinion that her eldest son was but 
a " useless creature." 

During her brief stay in Scotland Lady Derby had 
waited on Charles IL, whom she found, so she wrote 
to the Duchess, behaving with wonderful prudence. 
Indignantly the Countess rejected the charge then being 
spread abroad that her King was a Catholic. " He is 
as true a Protestant as ever," she wrote. But she pitied 
him in being obliged to listen to horrible sermons against 
his father, delivered by persons whom she called 
" atheists." 

Charlotte's loyalty must have been severely tested 
when, a few months later, she heard that on his coronation 
at Scone ^ Charles had subscribed to the Solemn League 
and Covenant, thereby admitting his father's sin, and 
his mother's idolatry. 

The King himself sent word to Lord Derby that the 
Scotch Presbyterians had determined to make common 
cause with English Royalists, and to restore him to the 
throne. These tidings Charlotte and her husband 
received with great joy. And henceforth the Earl held 
himself in readiness to join his sovereign whenever the 
summons should reach him. Meanwhile, throughout the 
summer of 1651, Derby busied himself in organising his 
gallant little navy, and in completing the defences of Man, 
so that in his absence the Island might continue to defy 
the enemy. 

Finally, in August, came the call which for ever was to 
part Lady Derby from the devoted husband who for 
twenty-five years had been her lover and friend. 

1 January, 1651. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 161 

For a while storms delayed his departure. " The wind 
is unmercifully cruel," wrote his brave daughter Henrietta 
Maria. But it must have been with mixed feelings of 
impatience and apprehension that she and her mother 
listened to the howling of the tempest round the walls of 
Castle Rushen. 

"It begins to be fair," she adds in the same letter. 
And on August 12th, Derby wrote : " my little vessel 
will be ready this tide." 

Three days later he was in Lancashire. Then began a 
period of anxious suspense for Lady Derby and her 
children left behind in the Isle of Man. 

Of her husband's desperate adventures from his landing 
in Lancashire, until his execution at Bolton-le-Moors, 
Charlotte knew nothing at the time. Of his successful 
raising of the county for the King, of his grievous wound- 
ing and defeat at Wigan, of his escape in disguise to 
Worcester, of his saving the King's life after the battle, 
of the exhausted Earl's own surrender to the Parlia- 
mentarians, of his imprisonment, trial and execution, 
not one word penetrated to his wife in her island home 
until after Derby had breathed his last on the scaffold — 
of all these sad happenings she heard nothing until the 
tidings reached her of her husband's death at Bolton on 
October 15th. 

When and how news of this tragedy first came to the 
Countess we do not know. But that some time or other 
the Earl's trusty chaplain, the Reverend Humphrey 
Baggerley, performed his lord's behest by delivering his 
letters to Charlotte, and telling her of the Earl's last 
moments, we do not doubt. From Baggerley, Lady 
Derby must have learnt that her lord had died bravely 
for God, the King, and the laws, that shortly before the 

C.R. M 



102 FROM THEj^CRUSADES 

end he had spoken of his honour and respect for his lady, 
and of her goodness as a wife, that he had remembered 
his eldest daughter, " Mall," ^ and his sons,^ " the honour- 
able little masters," and that but a few hours before his 
execution he had drunk a cup of beer to his lady and 
their children. 

In the two letters which the chaplain delivered to Lady 
Derby, the Earl took a tender pathetic farewell of his 
wife and children. To his lady, referring to earlier 
letters, which likewise did not reach her until after his 
death, he wrote : 

" My dear Heart, I have heretofore sent you comfort- 
able lines, but, alas ! I have now no word of comfort, 
saving to our last and best refuge, which is Almighty God, 
to Whose will we must submit. ... I conjure you, my 
dearest heart, by all those graces which God hath given 
you, that you exercise your patience in this great and 
strange trial. If harm come to you, then I am dead 
indeed, and until then I shall live in you, who are truly 
the best part of myself. When there is no such as I in 
being, then look upon yourself and my poor children ; 
then take comfort, and God will bless you." ^ 

To his "poor children," to "little Mall, Ned and 
BiUy," of whom he had often thought and spoken during 
his captivity, the Earl wrote '*' : 

" I remember well how sad you were to part with me, 
but now I fear your sorrow will be greatly increased to be 

1 Derby's two younger daughters, Catherine and Amelia, the Parlia- 
ment had established at Chester shortly before their father had been 
brought there as a prisoner. The Stanley girls were permitted to visit 
the Earl in prison and to bid him farewell on his way to execution. 

2 As soon as he heard of his father's imprisonment, the Earl's eldest 
son, Lord Strange, had, with his wile, come to Chester. And there he 
and Lady Strange were completely reconciled to their father. 

3 See Seacombe, op. cit., 185 — 186. 
* Ibid.. 186—187. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 163 

informed that you can never see me more in this world ; 
but I charge you all to strive against too great a sorrow : 
you are all of you of that temper that it would do you 
harm. My desires and prayers to God are, that you may 
have a happy life. Let it be as holy a life as you can, and 
as little sinful as you can avoid or prevent. I can well 
now give you that counsel, having in myself at this time 
so great a sense of the vanities of my life, which fill my 
soul with sorrow ; yet I rejoice to remember that when I 
have blessed God with pious devotion, it has been most 
delightful to my soul, and must be my eternal happiness. 
" Love the Archdeacon,^ he will give you good precepts. 
Obey your mother with cheerfulness and grieve her not ; 
for she is your example, your nursery, your counsellor, 
your all under God, There never was, nor ever can be a 
more deserving person. I am called away, and this is the 
last I shall write to you. The Lord my God bless and 
guard you from all evil. So prays your father at this 
time, whose sorrow is inexorable to part with Mall, Ned 
and Billy. Remember, 

" Derby." 

Lord Derby had anticipated that after his death his 
gallant wife would have great difficulty in maintaining 
her defence of Man. And in more than one of his letters 
the Earl had advised Charlotte to surrender the Island to 
the Parliament on the best terms she could secure for 
herself, her children and the inhabitants, and then to 
retire with her family to some place remote from the war. 
Lord Derby's fears proved to have been well justified. 
But Charlotte de La Tremoille's stout heart could not 
bring itself to follow her lord's counsel. And when two 
of the Parliament's colonels, Duckenfield and Birch, with 
ten ships of war, approaching the Island, summoned the 

1 Mr. Rutter, who had been tutor to Lord Strange. 

M 2 



i64 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Countess to surrender. Lady Derby, as in Lathom days, 
boldly bade them defiance.^ 

Into the Countess's mouth on this occasion, Scott, in 
" Peveril of the Peak," puts just such words as she might 
actually have spoken. Referring to this event in after 
years, he makes her say : — 

" I would have held . . . that island against the knaves 
as long as the sea continued to flow around it. Till the 
shoals which surround it had become safe anchorage, till 
its precipices had melted beneath the sunshine, till of all 
its strong abodes and castles not one stone remained upon 
another, would I have defended against these villainous 
hypocritical rebels my dear husband's hereditary 
dominions." 

Vain were all Lady Derby's courage and heroism. 
The Island was undermined by treason. Treachery did 
what force could never have accomplished. The Governor 
of Man, William Christian, in whom the late Earl had 
placed implicit confidence, was in league with the enemy. 
Led by Christian, the very night after the arrival of 
the Parliament's ships, the Manxmen rose in a body, 
seized Castle Rushen, where Lady Derby was then 
residing, and prepared to hand the whole island over to 
the enemy. 

Meanwhile, in the other fortress of Man, in Peel Castle, 
which at high tide formed an island of itself, there still 
held out a brave body of men commanded by a gallant 
royalist. Sir Philip Musgrave. The Parliamentarians, in 
negotiating with the captive Countess, offered her hfe, 
liberty, and all her goods if she would abandon this httle 
band of defenders unconditionally into their hands. But 

1 It is doubtful whether at that time Lady Derby had received her 
husband's letters. It may have been those Parliamentarian generals 
who sent her news of the Earl's death. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 165 

those who made such a proposal Httle knew the loyalty 
of a La Tremoille. Then- offer Lady Derby rejected with 
the utmost scorn, replying that she preferred to remain a 
prisoner rather than abandon a single man who had been 
faithful to her. So with the greater part of her personal 
property in the Island, the Countess purchased the lives 
of Musgrave and his men.^ Out of all her goods, 400 
crowns worth of silver plate was allowed her, just sufficient 
to pay for the passage to England of herself and her 
children. 

Under Musgrave's escort, Lady Derby and her family, 
after a stormy crossing, landed at Beaumaris. There they 
bade farewell to their brave comrade ; Sir Philip took his 
way to the north, while the Countess and her children, we 
presume, journeyed to London. For it was there that in 
the following March, Lady Derby resumed her corre- 
spondence with her sister-in-law, in a letter ^ from which 
we obtain our only reliable information concerning her 
departure from Man. 

During the eight years between her arrival in England 
and the King's restoration, Lady Derby was chiefly 
concerned in endeavouring to rescue from Parliamen- 
tarian confiscators the remnants of her own and her 
husband's fortune, in marrying her daughters, and in 
providing for the advancement of her two younger sons. 

After three years she succeeded in recovering her own 
dowry and the estate of Knowsley, whither she retired, 
glad to leave London, where she found living too expensive 
for her very limited resources. 

The year after the surrender of Man, Lady Derby 

1 This agreement was signed on November nth, 1651. 

2 This letter contradicts the statement made by more than one 
authority that for several months after the Island's surrender the 
Countess was kept a prisoner in Man. 



i66 FROM THE CRUSADES 

married her second daughter, Catherine, to Henry 
Pierrepont, Marquis of Dorchester, a middle-aged widower, 
very rich, but one of the most eccentric persons of his 
time. Dorchester, by adopting the medical profession, 
had scandalised the nobility and terrified all his friends 
and relatives for whom he insisted on prescribing. By 
the time Catherine Stanley married him he was said to 
have already killed his daughter, his coachman, and five 
other patients. In the end he himself is said to have died 
of his physic. But unfortunately for Catherine that 
Nemesis did not overtake him until she had been ten 
years in her grave. Yet a naturally strong constitution 
had enabled her long to resist her husband's medica- 
ments, and, victimised by his extravagant whims and 
irascible disposition, to live through twenty-seven years 
of married misery. 

Lady Derby, who at first exulted in procuring so 
wealthy a husband for her daughter, only three months 
after the wedding, realised that she had made a hideous 
mistake. Therefore in mating her two other daughters 
she avoided eccentricities. Henrietta Maria and Amelia 
were lucky in being united to quite commonplace persons. 
Henrietta's spouse, William Wentworth, second son of the 
famous Earl of Strafford, inherited none of his father's 
gifts and probably proved a placid husband. 

Amelia, a clever and attractive brunette, " with an 
equal and patient temper," in her marriage with John, 
the second earl and first Marquis of Atholl, appears to 
have been the most fortunate of the sisters. Her wedding, 
which took place on May 5th, 1659, rendered her, as she 
wrote, " the happiest creature alive," and the happiness 
seems to have endured. She bore her husband three 
sons, the eldest of whom, John, became first Duke of 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 167 

AthoU. The Marquis died in 1703. His wife was 
living in 1691, but the date of her death is uncertain. 

While Lady Derby was busy marrying her daughters, 
she was sending her two youngest sons abroad. Edward, 
her second son, she had despatched, in 1654, to his aunt, 
the Duchess, enjoining on him to show her the same 
affection, respect and obedience as he had rendered to his 
mother. " He has some knowledge of mathematics, 
painting and surveying," she wrote. " He is gentle, and 
of a good disposition, brave, but without pride, a very 
common vice of his nation." That lack of pride or that 
dignified modesty has ever been one of the finest 
characteristics of the typical English country gentleman, 
and it was from his father that Edward Stanley had 
inherited it. 

In 1657, William Stanley joined his brother in France. 
" Poor children," wrote their mother, " they must needs 
seek their fortunes abroad, since they have nothing to 
hope for from the land of their birth." 

From her eldest son, Charles, now Lord Derby, Char- 
lotte continued estranged. Not even his devotion to his 
father in his imprisonment could win his mother's 
forgiveness. Charles is said to have ridden from Chester 
to London and back in twenty-four hours, in order to 
petition Parliament to annul the capital sentence passed 
by court-martial on his father. But nothing could make 
Charlotte forget that her first-born had run away ^ from 
home, had wedded a wife without a dowry, and had 
negotiated with the Parliament. " Worse than the 
prodigal son," she calls him. And to her daughter-in-law 
she was equally unjust. " There never was so malignant 
a nature as that woman's, who has nothing good or 
pleasant about her," she wrote. 



i68 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Despite these hard words, however, motherly love was 
not utterly extinguished in Charlotte's heart ; and the 
approach of danger fanned that spark into a flame. 

In the Royalist rising which took place in Lancashire 
in 1659, Lord Derby, having been defeated at Nantwich, 
was taken prisoner. His wife joined him in prison. 
And then Charlotte welcomed to her home at Knowsley 
his nine little children, one of whom was an infant but a 
few weeks old. At the same time, the Countess wrote to 
her sister-in-law entreating her to procure the inter- 
vention of the French ambassador in England, Monsieur 
de Bordeaux, on her nephew's behalf. Apparently this 
intervention took place and succeeded ; for Derby, after 
having been imprisoned first at Shrewsbury, and then in 
the Tower of London, was set at liberty. 

No sooner was her son out of danger than Charlotte's 
bitterness against him returned. She accused him of 
cheating her out of a share in the revenues of the Isle of 
Man, which she said his father had assigned to her for 
twenty-one years. 

As to the merits of this quarrel we cannot attempt to 
judge. But the vindictiveness with which the Countess 
pursued it is revealed in her letters. Another document 
shows her inconsistency : in her will, dated 1654, while 
" trusting in Jesus to forgive her own misdeeds," she 
refuses to pardon her son, and cuts him off with £^. 

We must not, however, be too hard on Charlotte by 
demanding from her virtues not in accordance with the 
spirit of the age, or with her own upbringing. The 
austere Calvinist faith in which she had been nurtured, 
encouraged an unforgiving disposition. Moreover, the 
Countess, like the rest of us, suffered from the vices of her 
virtues ; and it was the same stem resolution which had 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 169 

enabled her to hold Lathom against the Parliamentarians, 
that now rendered her implacable in resentment. We 
may also suspect that Charlotte and her eldest son were 
too much alike in disposition to have ever been excellent 
friends. Charles Stanley had all the La Tremoille 
characteristics ; he, unlike his brother Edward, was 
proud, and at the same time, impulsive, resolute and 
vigorous. 

Meanwhile, despite the failure of the Lancashire rising. 
Royalist feeling was growing throughout the country, 
and the Republican party was daily becoming more 
disintegrated. Lady Derby was now filled with hope, 
especially when General Monk set out from Scotland on 
his famous march to London. 

" General Monk has seized Berwick . . . where he is 
now negotiating some kind of treaty with Lambert," 
wrote Charlotte. " God in His goodness wUl bring out 
order from disorder." 

And her hopes were not disappointed. Events moved 
rapidly. On February nth, 1660, Monk led his troops 
into London. On May 7th, Lady Derby could write that 
Parliament had "done justice and recognised his Majesty." 
" It is true that this passes human wisdom," she ex- 
claimed ; " it is beyond our understanding, and can never 
be enough admired." 

By this time the Countess's two eldest sons had taken 
their places in Parliament, the Earl in the House of Lords, 
his brother William in the Commons, but not without 
considerable opposition. The youngest, Edward Stanley, 
was abroad with the King, standing high in his Sovereign's 
favour. In such stirring times the Countess could no 
longer remain in exile at Knowsley. If only for her 
children's interests, she must needs come to London. It 



170 FROM THE CRUSADES 

was difficult, however, for her to afford the journey and 
the expense of hving in the capital. But, summoning all 
her resources, in May she arrived in town. 

As she had anticipated, after years of country life, the 
sight of the great world and its rejoicings filled her with 
mingled thoughts. But she would not permit the con- 
templation of her own misfortunes to cloud her joy at her 
Sovereign's restoration. " We may well say God hath 
done wonders," she wrote, " for which may His name be 
for ever blessed." 

From the King, both for herself and her children. Lady 
Derby hoped much. Alas ! those hopes were destined to 
disappointment. Had her loyalty permitted, the Countess 
at the close of her life might have echoed the Psalmist's 
cry: " Put not your trust in princes . . . in whom there 
is no help." Charles no doubt found it impossible to 
gratify all those who looked to him for the reward of past 
services. Yet one would have thought that the defender 
of Lathom, and the widow of one who had died in his 
cause, had a first claim upon his gratitude. 

True, the King was lavish in his promises, true he was 
all kindness, courtesy and sympathy to the widow, 
visiting her unceremoniously when she was ill, and 
winning her heart, so that she described him as " the 
most charming prince in the world." Yet this Prince 
Charming, while rewarding others who had served him 
less faithfully, did nothing but dangle before Charlotte's 
aspiring gaze the imcertain hope that if the Queen bore 
him children. Lady Derby should be their governess. 

For Lady Derby's sons the King did practically 
nothing. All that William Stanley received was a 
cornetcy in the Guards. The King's brother, the Duke of 
York, showed a truer appreciation of the services rendered 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 171 

by this family to the royal cause by appointing Edward 
Stanley to be first and sole gentleman of his bedchamber. 
Meanwhile the " worse than prodigal son," possessed by 
his mother's vindictiveness, had fallen into disgrace by his 
summary execution of the traitor, William Christian, thus 
violating the Act of Indemnity, and laying himself open 
to a charge of murder. From this charge Lord Derby 
was fortunate in escaping with no heavier penalty than 
the confiscation of part of his estates and banishment 
from court. 

These bitter disappointments, however, Charlotte in 
that glorious year of the Restoration did not foresee. 
Then in the fulness of hope she could participate in 
royalist rejoicing. And in an unusually cheerful spirit 
in this and following years, she wrote to her sister-in-law 
of the gay doings at court and in town, of the coronation, 
of the Queen-Dowager's return, of the marriage of the 
King and the Duke of York, also, alas ! — and with no less 
satisfaction — of those dire deeds of revenge which sullied 
the King's return, of that black day, January 30th, 1661, 
the twelfth anniversary of Charles I.'s death, when the 
exhumed corpses of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradlaugh 
were dragged on hurdles through London streets, hanged 
at Tyburn gate, and buried beneath it. 

Towards the end of her life. Lady Derby found it im- 
possible to meet the expenses involved by residence in 
London. She was in debt ; tradesmen were beginning to 
dun her, and even to refuse to supply her with necessaries. 
Therefore, she retired to Knowsley ; and there during the 
severe winter of 1662-3 she fell ill. Although from that 
sickness she recovered, another followed ; and on 
March 31st, 1664, she died at the age of sixty-five. 

In her will she had pathetically begged "to be buried 



172 FROM THE CRUSADES 

near her dear lord and husband in the parish church at 
Ormskirk in Lancashire, "if it may be without un- 
necessary expense." Possibly the expense M-as deemed 
unnecessary. At any rate, this testamentary^ request was 
ignored until nine years after Charlotte's death. Then, 
and not till then, were her remains interred in Ormskirk 
Church, and after her name in the parish register were 
inscribed the words : post fiincra virtus. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 173 



CHAPTER Vn 

HENRY CHARLES DE LA TREMOILLE, A HERO OF THE FRONDE. 
1620 — 1672 

The heads of the La Tremoille family may be classed in 
two categories, those who played a prominent part in war 
and in national affairs, and those who lived quietly the 
lives of country gentlemen. 

To the second category, in the last part of his life, 
belongs Lady Derby's eldest brother Henry, Due de 
Thouars. Having served his King in many campaigns, 
Henry, at the age of forty-five, on the death of Louis XHL, 
just at the time when across the channel his sister was 
holding at bay the Parliamentarian army, retired from 
public affairs. On his estates in Poitou and Brittany he 
passed the remainder of his days, keeping aloof alike from 
the troubles of Louis XIV. 's long minority, and from the 
splendour of his personal rule. In the quietude of this 
rural existence the Duke's life was prolonged to what was 
then the extremely advanced age of seventy-six. Out- 
living his wife and eldest son, he died in 1674. 

But during this long retirement, Henry by no means 
lost interest in public affairs. And in 1658, on the death 
of Oliver Cromwell, we find him writing^ to the exiled 
Queen of England, Henrietta Maria, a letter permeated 
not only with ardent monarchism, but with that religious 

1 The letter dated October ist, 1658, appears in the " Registre de 
Correspondance et Biographie du Due Henry de La Tremoille," par 
Hugues Imbert (Poitiers, 1867), 53. 



174 FROM THE CRUSADES 

bitterness which too often characterises those who have 
changed their faith. ^ " Madame," he wrote, " my 
isolation from court and from society hath alone deferred 
the performance of my duty in giving expression to my 
feelings on the death of the common enemy of princes, of 
religion, and of your Majesty. The public and my own 
personal joy [at this event] is augmented and intensified 
by the desire and the hope to behold the King, your Son, 
established upon the august throne of an empire once so 
prosperous, but now to the horrible scandal of all Christen- 
dom, ruined by heresy, impiety and rebellion. We hoped 
from divine justice a chastisement which it seems pleased 
to reserve for another life, possibly because in this one 
there exists no punishment proportionate to crimes 
unparalleled throughout all time." 

The Duke's change of religion must have caused 
considerable dissension in the ducal household, where the 
Duchess, the stern Marie de la Tour, remained true to 
Protestantism, and where the children, two of them,^ 
although the Duke had insisted on their all being admitted 
with him into the Catholic Church, afterwards reverted to 
their mother's faith. 

By Marie de la Tour, Henry had five children : Henry 
Charles, Prince de Tarente ; Louis Maurice, Comte de 
Laval, who served with the Due de Longueville in his 
ItaHan campaigns ; Armand Charles and Elizabeth, who 
both died in childhood ; and Marie Charlotte, who at 
Paris on July i8th, 1662, married Bernard of Saxe 
Weimar, son of the Duke of Saxe Weimar ; she became a 
widow in 1678, and died of apoplexy in 1682.^ 

^ For the Duke's abjuration of the Protestant rehgion, see ante, 
132. 

"^ The Prince de Tarente and his sister, Marie Charlotte. 

^ In " La Galerie des Portraits de Mdlle. de Montpensier" (see ed. 
Barthdemy, 50 — 54), Mdlle. de La Tremoille in terms by no means 




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TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 175 

It was to his eldest son, Charles, famous in history as the 
Prince de Tarente, that the Duke looked for the main- 
tenance of the family tradition of prowess in war and 
activity in national affairs. And in 1656, in order to 
help him to maintain this position, Henry, hke a latter- 
day King Lear, actually ceded to his son the duchy of 
Thouars with its title, chateau, lands, and all other 
appurtenances. Charles in his father's stead became a 
peer of France, and took his place in the Paris Parlement. 
But such fame had he won as Prince de Tarente that until 
the day of his death, in 1672, he was known by no other 
title. 

For the Prince de Tarente's eventful career we are 
fortunate in possessing an excellent authority in the 
shape of his own Memoirs,^ told in his own words for 
the benefit of his children. 

Of this valuable little book, as far as we can ascertain, 
there exists only one edition, that printed at Liege in 
1767. But the Due de La TremoiUe possesses two 
manuscripts of the work enriched with corrections and 
additions. It is mainly from this narrative that the 
following story of the Prince's life is derived. 

Born at Thouars on December 17th, 1620, in his 
earliest years Charles was extremely delicate. He was 
about seven years old when his father became a Catholic ; 
and then the boy's education was confided to a Jesuit 
priest, who taught him, in addition to mathematics and 
drawing, to speak Latin with as great facility as his 
mother tongue. Later, Charles was sent to the Academy 

flattering gives a description of her own character and personal 
appearance. 

1 " Memoires de Henri Charles de La Tremoille, Prince de Tarente," 
a Liege, chez J. F. Bassompierre, Imprimeur de son Altesse et Librairie, 
1767. 



176 FROM THE CRUSADES 

of one Sieur Benjamin, where he had for playmate and 
friend his cousin the Due d'Enghien/ who, as the great 
Conde, was to exercise a dominant and disastrous influence 
over his career. 

His schooldays ended, Charles returned to Thouars. 
There he found time hang heavily on his hands. The 
humdrum life of a country gentleman was not to the 
taste of this aspiring youth. The blood of his warrior 
ancestors boiled in his veins, and he longed to go forth 
and win his spurs in the field of war. The example of his 
great forbear, Louis de La Tremoille, the " Knight 
without Reproach," fired his ambition. And we are not 
surprised to find him following in Louis' footsteps and 
running away from home.^ But Charles's escapade met 
with better success than Louis', for while the fifteenth 
century truant had been ignominiously caught and 
brought home, his descendant succeeded in reaching 
Dieppe and embarking on a boat which carried him to 
England. In after years. La Tremoille confessed to his 
children, that his success in getting away was largely due 
to his Protestant mother, who, eager to remove her son 
from his father's Catholic influence, had connived at his 
flight. But England was not the destination on which 
the truant had set his heart. His ambition was to trail 
a pike in the Low Countries, that great school of war 
whither his great-uncle, '"^ the Stadtholder, Frederick, 
Henry of Nassau, by his brilliant campaigns against the 
Spaniards, was attracting all the gallant youth of Europe. 

The tempests of the Channel and the qualms of sea- 
sickness, however, so cooled the Prince's ardour that by 

1 The grandson of Charlotte de La Tremoille, Princesse de Cond6. 

2 See ante, 53. 

* Frederick Henry was the son of William the Silent, and the 
brother of Charlotte Brabantine, wife of Claude de La Tremoille, who 
was our hero's grandmother. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 177 

the time his captain landed him at a Devonshire sea-port 
he had for the moment lost all taste for adventure ; and 
gladly did he accept his Aunt and Uncle Derby's invitation 
to spend two months with them in London. 

During this time La Tremoille's diplomatic mother was 
winning her husband's pardon for their son, and obtaining 
his consent to Charles's design of joining his great kinsman 
in the Netherlands. So completely successful was her 
intercession, that the Duke promised Charles an allowance 
of 30,000 livres per annum, to which amount Marie de la 
Tour, from her private purse, added a considerable sum. 

It was during his stay in England that the Prince 
rejoiced his mother's heart by resolving to return to the 
Reformed faith, a resolution to which he gave effect 
immediately on his arrival at the Hague. 

In that year, 1639, ^^^ Dutch court was busy with 
negotiations for the marriage of the Stadtholder's son. 
Prince William, with the English Princess Mary, eldest 
daughter of Charles I. The marriage was arranged in the 
following year, and La Tremoille was invited to accompany 
the bridegroom, who was but a boy of sixteen, to his 
wedding in London. 

But on the eve of departure Charles met with an 
adventure which came near to upsetting his English 
visit. 

This youth of twenty had employed his time at the 
Dutch court by falling in love with his cousin, Louisa 
Henrietta, the Stadtholder's daughter. And when the 
royal party found itself hindered from starting and 
windbound in Brill harbour, our young adventurer 
profited by the delay to slip back to the Hague and bid 
his dear cousin one more farewell. Then on the morrow, 
fearing lest the Prince might have set forth without him, 

C.R. N 



178 FROM THE CRUSADES 

he returned with all possible speed to the coast, and, in a 
little boat, with one sailor and an officer of his suite, set 
out for Brill. Five miles from land, however, as ill luck 
would have it, they were caught in a squall. The seaman 
promptly lost his head, while the landsmen fell a-pray- 
ing. From these pious exercises they were speedily 
diverted by the mariner joining them. This La Tremoille 
could not endure. It was all very well for landlubbers to 
pray, but from a sailor his passengers expected more 
active measures. So, in the most violent Flemish he 
could command, Charles rounded on the praying sailor, 
explaining to him forcibly, that faith without works is 
dead. The works which followed this adjuration, how- 
ever, bid fair to be the death of these seafarers : for with 
La Tremoille at the helm and the boatman obeying his 
orders by sailing in the teeth of the storm, things went 
from bad to worse : first their mast was shattered, then 
they themselves were plunged up to their necks in water, 
and finally the barque capsized. Afraid lest the land was 
too far away for them to swim to, they clung to their over- 
turned craft, and just managed to keep afloat until the 
tempest abated and their boat righted herself. Eventu- 
ally, after a voyage of three hours, which ought not to 
have lasted more than forty-five minutes, they reached 
Brill in time to join the Prince and his escort. 

Overtaken by no further adventure and escorted by the 
Dutch fleet, the royal party crossed the sea and sailed up 
the Thames to Gravesend. 

Here they were met by the Ambassadors from the Low 
Countries, and by royal coaches which conveyed them to 
Whitehall, where Prince William, and — we may presume 
— La Tremoille with him, was presented to their Majesties. 
Thence, after visiting the Princes and Princesses at 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 179 

Somerset House, they proceeded to their own quarters 
near by, in that curious assemblage of detached buildings 
known as Arundel House. Despite its lack of archi- 
tectural beauty, Arundel House, filled as it was with 
priceless works of art, had for years been deemed a worthy 
residence for distinguished foreign visitors to London. 
Sully had stayed there when he was French Ambassador 
in the reign of James I. 

At this point La Tremoille's Memoirs are disappointing. 
Of the royal wedding there was little to tell, for it was 
celebrated quietly on May 2nd, 1641, on the very day 
when King Charles was making one of his attempts to 
gain military control over the Tower of London ; and we 
may pardon our author if of the unceremonious espousal 
at Whitehall of the little girl of ten by the boy of sixteen 
he has not a word to say. But of the impression made 
upon the young foreigner's mind by the condition of 
England at that time, of an England on the eve of civil 
war, of an England in which the Archbishop of Canterbury 
lay impeached on a charge of high treason in the Tower, 
and in which the King's first minister was but a few days 
later to lose his head, we might have expected to have 
been given some idea. At that time such subjects, 
however, did not interest our Memoirist. War and 
women were the matters of most moment to him then, 
and war for him, as for many another in that day, too 
often meant mere revenge for private wrongs. 

So during his English visit he was completely absorbed 
with what he proudly describes as his " first affair of 
honour since he came into the world." It arose out of 
a dispute with Count Henry of Nassau, who wished to 
occupy a dressing-room which had been assigned to La 
Tremoille. This wonderful duel, much to the would-be 

N 2 



i8o FROM THE CRUSADES 

warrior's chagrin, never took place, for the young Prince 
of Orange bound him over to keep the peace while in 
England, and on his return to Holland the Stadtholder 
forbade him to fight. 

From personal affairs of honour La Tremoille was soon 
diverted by the wider operations of the Thirty Years' War. 
In the summer of 1641, Frederick Henry appointed him 
colonel of a cavalry regiment ; and in this capacity La 
Tremoille, so he tells us, distinguished himself for vigour 
and valour, remaining four consecutive nights on horse- 
back to avoid a surprise by the enemy. But this excess 
of youthful ardour resulted in an illness which before the 
close of the campaign compelled the young colonel to 
withdraw from action. 

By the next year he was well enough to take the field 
again. And now " the vivacity of his youth," as he calls 
it, involved him in a second affair of honour, which 
proved more serious than the first. Encamped before 
Rhimbergue, he fought a duel with Prince Radzivill,' one 
of Elizabeth Stuart's numerous admirers. His antagonist 
wounded him so severely in the right arm, four inches 
above the wrist, that the limb was nearly severed.^ 

" Straightway," writes Tarente, " my sword flew out of 
my hand. I fell, and Prince Radzivill's people raised me 
and tied up my arm in order to stop the flow of blood, for 
I was bleeding profusely. A messenger hastened to 
Rhimbergue for a surgeon, and came back with one called 
Le Sage, who saved my life by his diligence. In order to 
stanch the blood he was obliged to bind several veins 
(sic) and arteries, which operation gave me intense pain. 
I was carried to Rhimbergue ; and there Le Sage, having 

1 There were several princes of that name who distinguished them- 
selves in this century. This was probably Janussiiis II., Grand 
Chamberlain of Lithuania. See Moreri's Dictionary, under Radzivill 

" " M^moires/' 19. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION i8i 

permitted me to rest for an hour, effected other ligatures, 
which caused me even worse pain than the first. Yet, 
notwithstanding all that I had suffered, the following 
night I slept soundly, and three weeks later a party of 
2,000 horse having approached our quarters, I mounted 
and charged them." 

But an injury such as La Tremoille describes could not 
be cured in three weeks, and a year later the wound was 
still troubling him. Then, when the campaign of 1643 
was over, he returned to France to take the waters of 
Barege in order to strengthen his arm ; and, after having 
greatly benefited from a month's treatment, he visited 
his parents at Thouars. There the subject of his marriage 
was mooted. The bride whom the Duke and Duchess had 
chosen for their eldest son was a great heiress, Mdlle. de 
Rohan, who, on account of her vast wealth, was one of the 
greatest matches in Europe. Already she had refused 
several distinguished suitors, among them La Tremoille's 
kinsman. Prince Rupert. But Mdlle. de Rohan's wealth 
had no attraction for La Tremoille, who was still deeply 
in love with his cousin Henrietta ; and during his stay at 
Thouars he persuaded his parents to do what they could 
in that quarter to further his suit. 

Returning to Holland, Tarente was in time to engage 
in the campaign of 1644, in which he had an extra- 
ordinary adventure. The plague was then devastating 
the Low Countries. After a long night march, La 
Tremoille with his regiment entered a village, where, 
worn out with fatigue, he went into one of the first 
houses he came to. There, without undressing, he threw 
himself on a bed and slept soundly. Suddenly he was 
awakened by the noise of trumpets ; and, on opening his 
eyes, saw standing by his bedside the village priest, who 



i82 FROM THE CRUSADES 

told him that the plague was rife in that village, and that 
he was in an infected house ; he believed, moreover, 
added the priest, that the house contained the bodies of 
its master and mistress, who, having died of the plague, 
were about to be interred when the army entered the 
village. "If we look we shall find them," said the priest. 
And he was not mistaken. The bed on which La Tremoille 
had been calmly reposing for an hour was unmade, and 
there beneath the mattress were the two corpses.^ 

By a marvellous stroke of luck La Tremoille escaped 
infection and returned to the Hague, where he continued 
to pay his addresses to his cousin. Many pages of the 
Memoirs are devoted to this love story. The lady herself 
apparently returned La Tremoille's affection ; the 
Stadtholder favoured his suit ; but in the Stadtholder's 
wife, the Princess of Orange, Emilie of Solms, he had a 
formidable adversary. She had first determined to 
marry her eldest daughter to the Prince of Wales ; but as 
the royal fortunes in England darkened, she selected as 
her son-in-law Frederick William, Elector of Branden- 
bourg, who was later to be known as the Great Elector. 
True to her cousin, however, Henrietta was obdurate, 
and, when the wedding day arrived, the bride had to be 
conducted to the church by force. In other respects, 
too, the bridal was a sad one, for Henrietta's illustrious 
father, Frederick Henry, was lying at the point of death, 
attacked by a mental malady. 

Shortly afterwards the family was summoned to his 
death-bed ; and Tarente tells us that he could not restrain 
his tears when he saw this famous captain, " who for so 
many years had gloriously commanded the armies of the 
United Provinces, and ruled the Republic with such 

1 " M6moires," 28. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 183 

great wisdom and authority, stretched upon his bed with 
less understanding than an infant." Frederick Henry 
had indeed been one of the most striking figures of the 
age ; by his mihtary and poHtical talents, by his wisdom 
and his diplomacy, he had brought his country to the 
height of prosperity. It must have been inexpressibly 
sad to see such a ruler laid low and deprived of intellect. 
A few days later, in March, 1647, William the Silent's 
great son passed away. " His death," writes La Tre- 
moille, " deprived me of all desire to establish myself in 
Holland." So, bidding farewell to his former love, 
whom he counselled to do her best to forget him, and to 
live happily with her husband, the Prince de Tarente 
returned to Thouars. 

Soon after his arrival negotiations for his mairiage 
with a member of the distinguished German house of 
Hesse Cassel were opened, and in a few months carried 
through. In September, 1647, the La Tremoille emissary, 
one Dumontal by name, was despatched to Cassel for the 
drawing up of the marriage contract ; and in the following 
May, " with more ceremony than he liked," in the 
Protestant church of Cassel, the Prince de Tarente was 
united to the very noble and illustrious Princess, Madame 
Emilie, Princess Landgrave of Hesse. 

The new Princesse de Tarente, who was later to become 
the friend of Madame de Sevigne, and to figure in her 
letters as la bonne Tarente, was the daughter of the late 
Landgraf of Hesse Cassel, Wilhelm V. Her mother, one 
of the strongest-minded women of the age, was Countess 
of Hanau Muntzenberg,^ and lady of other extensive 

1 Her husband died in 1637, leaving his estates heavily burdened 
with debt, which his widow during her son's long minority succeeded 
in paying off. She was also able to raise and to maintain on the side 
of France in the Thirty Years' War a force of 6,000 foot and 4,000 horse 



i84 FROM THE CRUSADES 

domains, the guttural names ^ of which, grating on the ears 
of Madame de Sevigne, were to suffer cruel distortion 
and merry mockery from the pen of that brilliant letter- 
writer. 

In his own marriage, the Prince de Tarente did not 
succeed in practising the wise counsel he had given to his 
former love : he and his wife, if we may believe the 
Memoirs "' of their daughter, Charlotte Amelie, Countess of 
Altenburg, did not live happily together. In his own 
Memoirs the Prince very seldom mentions his wife. 

After the Treaty of Westphalia had made peace 
between the United Provinces and Spain, Holland ceased 
to afford La Tremoille a field for his warlike activities. 
He discovered one, however, in France, where the war 
which continued with Spain was soon to be complicated 
by the internal struggles of the Fronde.^ 

With the wisdom of after years, the Prince looked back 
regretfully on this period of his life, " Those events," 
he wrote, referring to the Fronde, " did more than any- 
thing else to injure my own fortunes, and those of my 
house." And, indeed, never in French history was there 
such a medley of inconsequence and folly as that into 
which La Tremoille, by the influence of his cousin, the 
Prince de Conde, was now being drawn. 

The objects of the Frondcurs were purely personal. 
Hatred of Cardinal Mazarin, the young King's chief 

Meanwhile her court became a school of manners, whither princes 
Hocked to learn the lane art of commanding othei^s and of commanding 
themselves. See Moreri's Dictionary, under Hesse Cassel, Amelie 
Elizabeth. 

1 Catzenelmbogen, Dietz, Ziegenhaim, Nidda. 

2 Of these interesting " Memoirs," the original MS. in French is in 
the Grand Ducal Library at Oldenburg ; translated into German, it 
has been published with an introduction, notes and commentary by 
Dr. Reinhard Mosen (Oldenburg, Leipzig, 1892). Mrs. Aubrey 
Le Blond is preparing an English version. 

* So called from the slings or Frondes used b}^ Parisian street arabs 
in their gutter-pla5^ This civil war broke out in 164S. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 185 

minister, inspired them all. In La Tremoille's case it 
was his desire to oust the Rohans from the presidency 
over the provincial parliament, the estates of Brittany, 
that induced him to throw in his lot with the rebellious 
nobles. Mazarin had favoured the Rohans. The Prince 
de Conde, Tarente's cousin, and the leader of the Fronde, 
promised to espouse his kinsman's cause if he would 
intervene actively on his side in the civil war. 

Thus was La Tremoille drawn into that vortex of 
romance, lawlessness and bizarrerie which for some years 
threatened to shipwreck the fortunes of France. On 
October ist, 1651, we find him accepting Conde's com- 
mission to raise a regiment of thirty companies in Poitou. 

Among all the confusion of the Fronde, one circum- 
stance stands out distinctly ; the whole movement was 
dominated b}'' women, by a group of Amazons, who were 
at once its instruments and its motive power, chiefly by 
two duchesses and two princesses, Chevreuse and Longue- 
ville, the Palatine,^ and the Great Mademoiselle. This 
brilliant, beautiful and fascinating quartette, mingling 
their political intrigues with those of love, played with 
the honour and the lives of men, and two of them, 
Chevreuse and the Palatine, did not scruple to disport 
themselves on the highways in masculine attire. 

Of the Palatine it was said that not even Elizabeth of 
England had more capacity for governing a state. 
Madame de Longueville's'-* gifts were her blonde hair 
and charming eyes. But by far the most influential 
and the most bizarre of the Frondeuses was the Great 
Mademoiselle, Anne de Montpensier, daughter of Gaston, 

1 Anne de Gonzague, second daughter of Charles de Gonzague, 
Due de Nevers, and of Catherine of Lorraine. 

2 Born in a prison, she died in a convent. She was sister to the 
Great Conde, and cousin, therefore, to the Prince de Tarente. 



i86 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Duke of Orleans, and grand - daughter of King 
Henry IV. 

With the Great Mademoiselle's two most striking 
achievements during the Fronde, the capture of Orleans 
and the battle of the Porte St. Antoine, the Prince de 
Tarente was more or less connected. 

After the Princess's ludicrous entry into Orleans, 
which, as related in her own Memoirs, reads like an 
absurd travesty of Jeanne d'Arc's entering the city, 
la Grande Mademoiselle amused herself by receiving 
presents of bonbons from the city council and by seizing 
and perusing the various despatches which passed through 
the town. When these chanced to contain love stories, 
or to reveal family secrets, the conqueress of Orleans was 
mightily diverted. One of these captured despatches, 
which to the Princess was very uninteresting, to Tarente 
was highly important ; and to him Mademoiselle had the 
good sense to send it. The possession of this letter 
enabled the Prince to save his chateau of Taillebourg 
from being razed to the ground by one of Mazarin's 
generals. But, balked of their prey in one direction, the 
Prince's enemies turned in their wrath against the most 
lordly of all the La Tremoille castles and threatened to 
besiege Thenars, where Duke Henry and his Duchess 
were then residing. 

It was to obtain a force for the protection of his own 
dominions that in March, 1652, Tarente, having resigned 
the command which for some months he had been 
exercising in Guyenne and Saintonge, went to Paris and 
there witnessed the Great Mademoiselle's second exploit. 

The Prince found Paris in a state of the utmost disorder. 
In the absence of Mazarin and the court, the feeble, 
vacillating Duke of Orleans, Mademoiselle's father, who 




HENRY CHARLES DE LA TREMOILLE, PRINCE DE TARENTE 

From a photograph by Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond of a picture belonging 
to Mr. Aldenburg Bentinck at Indio. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 187 

should have been at the head of affairs, was proving 
himself totally incompetent. Waves of riot and robbery 
surged up to the very gates of his palace, the Luxembourg. 
Only a few yards away, in the Rue de Tournon, a President 
of the Parlement was nearly murdered. The most 
brilhant figure of the day, Cardinal de Retz, in his Memoirs 
tells how he went in hourly fear of death by assassination. 

The horror of this state of things appears to have 
impressed La Tremoille, for, when Conde came to Paris 
in April, we find the Prince vainly endeavouring to 
persuade his kinsman to make peace. 

In May, Mademoiselle left Orleans, and entered Paris, 
where she took up her abode in the Tuileries. On the 
way she had been besieged in Etampes by Mazarin's army 
under Turenne. 

Coming away from the Protestant sermon at Charenton 
one Sunday morning. La Tremoille heard of the raising of 
the siege of Etampes and the march of Turenne towards 
Paris. Hastening to the Hotel de Conde,^ near the 
Luxembourg, the Prince de Tarente was in time to assist 
at a council of war, which resulted in the raising of a 
citizen army. With this force Conde, and La Tremoille 
with him, marched out to St. Cloud, while Turenne took 
up his position a little further north, on the opposite bank 
of the Seine, at St. Denis. A good deal of skirmishing 
took place between the two forces. And La Tremoille 
relates how, during a night attack on the village of St. 
Denis, he and his men crossed the moat up to their necks 
in water, and drove the Swiss guards, who were holding 
the village for Turenne, to take refuge in the Abbey. 
But two days later the King's troops recaptured St. Denis, 

1 The present Rue de Conde takes its name from the old hotel, of 
which nothing remains. 



i88 FROM THE CRUSADES 

and Conde soon began to find his position at St. Cloud 
untenable. 

He then resolved to transfer his army to Charenton ; 
and, in order to avoid making a long dStour, he asked the 
municipality of Paris to allow his force to pass through 
the city. This permission, however, was refused. And 
thus it came about that on the night of July ist, as 
Mademoiselle was leaning out of her window in the 
Tuileries, she heard the sound of drums and trumpets, 
and saw in the distance a whole army beginning to 
defile past on the other side of the ramparts,^ 

Close on Conde's rear Turenne's arm}/ was pressing ; 
and at da\\Ti in the Faubourg St. Antoine a battle engaged, 
in which the Frondeurs, with their backs to the St. Antoine 
gate, soon began to have the worst of it. Then it was 
that Conde despatched in all haste a message to the 
Luxembourg, imploring the Duke of Orleans for aid. But 
Gaston, as was his wont in every crisis, pleaded illness and 
refused to see the messenger, who speedily went to the 
TuUeries and knocked up Mademoiselle. It was six 
o'clock in the morning. The heroine of Orleans had 
passed but four hours in bed, for until two o'clock she had 
been at her window watching the troops on the march. In 
a trice, however, she was up and away to the Luxembourg, 
weeping and storming at her phlegmatic father, until, 
merely to get rid of her, he bade her be gone to the Hotel 
de Ville to command the municipality to open its gates to 
Conde and his army. Then, tearing through the streets, 
forcing her way through the mob which thronged the Place 
de Greve into the presence of the Provost of the Merchants, 
the aldermen and the governor of Paris, assembled in 

1 " Memoires de Mdlle. de Montpensier," ed. Mich, et Poujoulat, 
Ser. II., Vol. IV.. Ii8. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 189 

the Hotel de Ville, she read them a letter from her father, 
asking them to excuse his absence through illness and to 
listen to his wishes as expressed by his daughter. These 
wishes were that the municipality should not only send 
an armed force to Conde's aid, but that they should 
reverse their previous decision and permit his army to 
pass through the city. It was hard for these civic 
dignitaries thus to eat their own words, and not until 
they had deliberated long and caused Mademoiselle to 
suffer an agony of suspense, did they agree to obey the 
Duke's orders. 

Meanwhile, Conde, with whom Mademoiselle imagined 
herself ardently in love, was in danger of defeat and death 
at the city gate. Of the events which there transpired. 
La Tremoille in his Memoirs gives a vivid account, which 
for the most part may be related in his own words. 

" Two harmless wounds I received in this action," he 
writes, " one in the belt of my cuirasse, the other in my 
helmet. In the place of the Due de Nemours, who had 
been wounded in the hand I offered the Prince [Conde] 
to command the vanguard, a proposal he received gladly. 
But, as I was advancing at his side, my horse fell, killed 
by a canon ball. Whereupon the Prince, thinking that 
I too had been struck, cried aloud, ' Alas ! unhappy that 
I am to have lost the last of my friends.' But I from 
beneath my horse called out that I was unharmed and 
suffering only from the bruises inflicted by my own 
armour during my fall. Straightway a soldier brought 
me another horse, which I mounted." 

Meanwhile, continues La Tremoille, Mademoiselle, 
" with a courage worthy of her birth, and far superior to 
that of her sex, had come to the Porte St. Antoine, where 
she persuaded the people that we were fighting for their 
liberty and for the banishment of a Minister v/ho oppressed 



190 FROM THE CRUSADES 

them. All she could do, however, was to induce them to 
open the gates so as to let pass the baggage of our army ; 
and meanwhile she wrote a note to the Prince, entreating 
him to save his life by coming in with the baggage. 
This he refused to do. Later, owing to Mademoiselle's 
persuasions, a Parisian force came out to join us. And 
at length the citizens listened to her entreaties, and 
opened the gates to all of us while the canon of the 
Bastille were fired on Turenne's army." 

La Tremoille's account of these proceedings differs in 
one or two details from that given by Mademoiselle in her 
Memoirs. For example, the former would indicate that, 
after winning the consent of the city council to open the 
gate, Mademoiselle had some difficulty in persuading the 
citizens to carry out the council's command. Made- 
moiselle herself does not mention this. But, however it 
may have been, Paris was now enthusiastically Frondeur. 
Conde and Mademoiselle were the heroes of the hour. 
La Tremoille shared their triumph. With his cousin, 
Tarente went to the Luxembourg, where Gaston d'Orleans 
received him, " doing me the honour," he writes, " to say 
that I had caused him more anxiety than anyone." 

During the weeks that followed, Paris was in an uproar. 
Its fickle citizens vacillated from side to side, while the 
leaders of both parties were negotiating or playing at 
negotiations, as was their custom throughout the Fronde. 
And meanwhile Mazarin was trying to use La Tremoille's 
known discontent with his position in Conde's army to 
detach him from his cousin. But the Cardinal did not 
succeed ; Tarente's affection for the Prince won the day ; 
and when the latter fell ilP in September, it was La 

1 Conde was suffering from the stone, a malady he had inherited 
from his father. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 191 

Tremoille who commanded his troops in the constant 
skirmishings with the royal forces outside the city gates. 

The Parisians soon grew tired of feeding Conde's army, 
and, victuals having been refused, the leader of the Fronde, 
on October 14th, was compelled to quit the capital.^ 
With him went La Tremoille. They directed their march 
to Champagne, where, as the result of a series of brilliant 
military operations, Conde captured several towns. He 
was unable to hold them, however, for any length of time ; 
and, finding it impossible to take any firm foothold in this 
province, he made his way to the northern frontier. 
There La Tremoille remained with him while he was 
recovering from another illness in his great forest-girt 
fortress of Stenay, through the winter of 1652-3. And 
it was then that the Prince de Tarente followed his leader, 
who had been appointed general of the Spanish forces, and 
openly joined the enemy of his country. 

In the summer of this year the Prince left his cousin for 
a while in order to go to Holland and raise money. 
Returning to the French frontier. La Tremoille found 
Conde again stricken with illness, while his troops were 
about to attack the town of Rocroy. Then Tarente, so 
he tells us, took the command, and after a siege of twenty- 
two days, captured the town.^ 

But Conde's army, writes the Prince, was in a terrible 
plight, two-thirds of the cavalry unmounted, and the rest 
of the soldiers wretchedly accoutred. Willingly would 
La Tremoille have equipped them at his own expense, had 
he been able. But his fortune was spent and his credit 
exhausted, as well as that of his friends. Indeed, for 

1 Cardinal de Retz, " Memoires," ed. Mich, et Poujoulat, Ser. III., 
Vol. I., 396 — 400. 

2 The great History of the Princes of Conde, by the Due d'Aumale, 
Vol. VI., Chap. 5, while stating that Cond^ -vyas ill at this time, makes 
no mention of La Tremoille's command. 



192 FROM THE CRUSADES 

generations the La Tremoille treasury was to suffer from 
deplenishment through the Prince de Tarente's lavish 
expenditure during this civil war. 

Hopeless of achieving anything with so miserable a 
force, the Prince threw up his command and returned to 
Holland. 

At Spa in the previous summer he had met the exiled 
Charles H. of England, who, having been turned out of 
France, where his presence impeded Mazarin's negotia- 
tions with Cromwell, had come to drink the waters with 
his sister Mary, the Dowager Princess of Orange. While 
residing in France, Charles had played a prominent part 
in the interminable negotiations between Frondeurs and 
Royalists ; and there doubtless he had met La Tremoille, 
whose importance and capacity must have made a great 
impression on the King. For Charles now conferred on 
him one of the highest honours left to the banished 
monarch to bestow, he invested him with the Order of the 
Garter. But in return for this favour, Charles asked the 
Prince to do him a service, which La Tremoille found it 
impossible to perform, viz. : to effect a reconciliation 
between the Princess of Orange and her mother-in-law, 
that quarrelsome Emilie de Solms, who had never forgiven 
Tarente for aspiring to the hand of her daughter. 

Once having cut himself adrift from his country. La 
Tremoille grew extremely eclectic in his foreign relations. 
Having drawn sword for the Catholic King, and accepted 
high honour from Charles, the Prince now negotiated 
with the champion of Protestantism and Charles's mortal 
enemy, Oliver Cromwell. While still at Spa, La Tremoille 
received an emissary from the Protector, who asked him 
to lead a movement of the French Protestant churches 
against the French crown. But the Prince's Protestantism 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 193 

was purely political, and in so rash an enterprise he 
refused to involve himself unless the Protector would 
undertake to appear in Languedoc. This was impossible ; 
and so the negotiations, during which La Tremoille had 
been careful not to commit himself in writing, fell through. 

In the winter of 1654 — 5 ^^e Prince was at the 
Hague, where his hospitable reception encouraged him to 
send for his wife, the Princess Emilie, and his sister, Marie 
Charlotte. And it was at the Hague, in May, 1655, that 
his eldest son, Charles, was born. He already had a 
daughter, Charlotte Emilie.^ 

Despite his father's poverty, the baptism of the infant 
Prince on July i8th was a magnificent and gorgeous 
ceremony, which is described in detail in a document of 
the La Tremoille archives.^ For sponsors the babe had 
the Estates of the United Provinces, represented by the 
deputies of Guelders, Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht ; the 
King of Sweden, Charles Gustavus,^ represented by Baron 
Spar ; and his aunt, Mademoiselle de La Tremoille. 

Amidst a huge concourse of people assembled from all 
the neighbouring towns, preceded, by a body of troops and 
followed by all that was most distinguished at the Dutch 
court, this tiny scrap of humanity, smothered in jewels 
and cloth of silver, lying on a cushion of the same, from 
which depended an interminable train borne by two noble 
damsels, was carried by his aunt, Marie Charlotte, to the 
Protestant Temple at the Hague. 

There he received the names of Charles, after his royal 
godfather, of Hollande, after one of his mother's kinsmen, 
and of Belgique, after the Estates. A luxurious banquet 

1 Known also as "Amelie." 

2 " Les La Tremoilles pendant cinq Siecles," IV., 203 — 206. 

* Cousin and successor of the famous Christina, who had abdicated 
in the previous year. 

C.R. O 



194 FROM THE CRUSADES 

followed the christening. From seven o'clock in the 
evening until four in the morning the illustrious guests 
were entertained, their ears diverted " by the flourishing 
of trumpets, the sound of timbrels, and the harmony of 
viols, and their palates flattered by the delicacy and 
diversity of the viands set before them," A few days 
later the Estates bestowed upon their godson a pension 
for life of i,ooo golden florins, to begin on July i8th in the 
following year. 

Throughout 1655, high pomps and pageants were the 
order of the day at the Dutch court. In one of her lively 
letters to her nephew Charles II., Elizabeth of Bohemia 
tells of a court ball at which the King's sister, the Princess 
of Orange, appeared as an Amazon, and the Princesse de 
Tarente as a shepherdess. For the Princesse de Tarente 
such pastimes might be all very well, but such a life of 
mere court gaiety irked her husband's martial soul. 
Now that the war was over, Holland was no place for him. 
His active mind longed for battles and sieges, or, failing 
them, for a political career. And so, towards the end of 
this year, we find him soliciting from the French court 
pardon for his treason and permission to return to the 
land of his birth. Both these requests Mazarin, now 
completely reinstated in power, granted with apparent 
magnanimity. But the wily Cardinal had his own ends 
to serve. La Tremoille, however, was quick to discern 
them. He was not to be hoodwinked by " the suave, 
affable and insinuating air " with which Mazarin greeted 
him on his arrival in Paris. The Prince realised imme- 
diately that this arch schemer wanted to use him as 
mediator with the still implacable Conde ; and La 
Tremoille, much to the disappointment of his relatives, 
refused thus to be made a tool of. In a very irreconcilable 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 195 

mood, therefore, he left Paris to go down and visit his 
parents at Thouars. 

It was there and then that Duke Henry resigned the 
dukedom of Thouars into his son's hands.^ And the 
Prince went back to Paris to take his seat in the 
Parlement. 

Mazarin had already begun to take his revenge for La 
Tremoille's obduracy by inciting the young Louis XIV. 
to find fault with the Prince for having without his 
sovereign's permission accepted an Order from a foreign 
king. But by some means or other Louis had been won 
over to La Tremoille's side, and on the previous ist of 
November the Prince de Tarente had received his King's 
permission to wear the Garter. All the while, however, 
Mazarin continued to plot against him. And the Prince's 
attempt to rouse the peasants of Poitou to resist the 
imposition of the salt tax did not render the Minister 
more friendly. 

In the spring of 1656 the court was at Compiegne ; 
and thither La Tremoille was summoned to join it. The 
Cardinal was amiability itself. He engaged the Prince in 
long conversations, which always terminated with an en- 
treaty that he would renounce Conde and all his works. 
Then, finding the Prince hopelessly obdurate, Mazarin 
changed his tactics ; La TremoiUe suddenly found 
himself arrested, hurried into a coach with an officer 
and two guards, and whirled away to the citadel of 
Amiens. 

" I have heard with great sorrow of your son's im- 
prisonment. I have since learnt . . . that his life is not 
in danger, for which I bless God. ... I do not doubt that, 

^ The document of abdication is dated January 20th, 1656 (" Les 
La Tr^moilles pendant cinq Siecles," IV., 177). 

O 3 



196 FROM THE CRUSADES 

with God's help for which I pray, he will soon recover his 
liberty." Thus wrote Lady Derby to her sister-in- 
law/ And we may be certain that the energetic Marie 
de La Tour left not a stone unturned in her efforts to 
obtain her son's liberty. 

Fortunately, on his way to prison, La Tremoille had 
fallen in with a knight of his mother's suite, by whom he 
had been able to send a message, not only to the Duchess, 
Marie, but to the Elector of Brandenbourg, husband of his 
former love, to the King of Sweden, his son's godfather, 
to the Landgraf of Hesse Cassel, his brother-in-law, and 
to his good friends, the States General of the United 
Provinces, all of whom he implored to intervene on his 
behalf. Through their influence probably, and through 
the kindness of the governor, he was leniently treated in 
prison, permitted to walk on the ramparts of the fortress, 
to converse with the townsfolk, and to communicate with 
his friends. His mother also was allowed to visit him 
and to discuss with him plans for his liberation. She 
had doubtless already interceded with Mazarin, and now 
she came to implore her son as the price of his freedom to 
give an undertaking, should the Cardinal require it, that 
he would leave the country. This La Tremoille promised 
to do. Meanwhile, in case his relatives' intercession 
should fail, he was laying plans for his escape : a faithful 
friend had smuggled into his prison ropes and an anchor, 
with which to attach them to the wall ; another friend 
was sounding the moat, and yet another had horses in 
readiness. 

All these contrivances, however, proved unnecessary ; 
for Mazarin agreed to the Duchess's conditions and 
released her son, permitting him to come to Paris to 

> See Madame de Witt, " The Lady of Lathom," 221. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 197 

arrange his affairs before starting for abroad. At the 
Porte St. Antoine, La Tremoille's mother awaited him, 
and while he was in Paris busied herself with further 
negotiations on his behalf, which resulted in a permission 
to go down to Brittany and spend six weeks with his 
father. During this time other friends were working for 
him, notably his kinsman, the Due de Noirmoustiers, 
and with such success that the decree of banishment 
from France was commuted into banishment from 
Paris. 

But for three years longer, until the Treaty of the 
Pyrenees in 1659, the Prince was far from being a free 
man. Mazarin controlled his movements, forbidding 
him to visit discontented Poitou, banishing him from his 
Breton estates, and finally commanding him to reside 
either at Troyes or at Auxerre. There is reason to be- 
lieve, also, that all this while La Tremoille was intriguing 
with Conde and fanning discontent with Mazarin's 
government. Finally, however, the Treaty of the 
Pyrenees ended civil as well as foreign war. Conde sub- 
mitted, and the King and Queen received La Tremoille 
at Toulouse. " The King told me he had forgotten 
everything," wrote Tarente, " and that in the future he 
would give me proofs of his affection." Conde was now 
free to return to France ; and after some years' separation 
there was an affectionate meeting of the cousins at Dijon, 
where La Tremoille promised to do his best to restore 
Conde to the Cardinal's good graces. 

It was not, however, until after Mazarin's death in 
1661 that Conde and Tarente were completely reinstated 
in all honour and greatness at court. Then at length 
Louis XIV. granted to La TremoiUe that dignity so long 
solicited by his house of presiding over the Assembly of 



igS FROM THE CRUSADES 

the Breton Estates. And the Prince's conduct of the 
session rendered him highly popular with the King, for 
at La Tremoille's suggestion a sum of no less than 
400,000 livres, afterwards doubled, was granted to the 
Crown. 

In the following year, on July 20th, 1662, La Tremoille 
married his sister Marie Charlotte to Bernard of Saxony, 
Duke of Jena, fourth son of the Duke of Saxe Weimar. 
And on this occasion Tarente obtained from Louis XIV. 
the official recognition of the title of Prince and Princess 
for all the members of his house, titles which they 
had assumed since the end of the fifteenth century, 
but were apparently only now officially permitted to 
bear. 

Then it was that La Tremoille ladies first began to 
enjo}^ that honour so greedily coveted by all high-born 
French dames and damsels of remaining seated on a 
tabouret or armless chair in the presence of their Sovereign. 
Charlotte Amelie tells ^ how to her great chagrin, on 
her promotion to the tabouret at the age of ten, her 
La Tremoille pride and person suffered a humiliating fall. 
The Princess being very small and the tabouret very high, 
she had to be lifted on to it by an Abbe of the Queen's 
household. But he placed her too far forward on the 
stool, and she, trying to seat herself more comfortably, 
fell off, amidst the loud laughter of the assembled court. 
Other privileges only granted to foreign princes were 
now accorded to the La Tremoilles. For as Princes of 
Taranto they now asserted their right to the Neapolitan 
crown, which they claimed to have inherited from their 
ancestress Anne de Laval, grand-daughter of Frederick of 
Arragon, King of Naples, who in 1521 married Francois 
1 Memoirs, 19. See ante, 184, n. 2. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 199 

de La Tremoille.^ This right, maintained for over a 
hundred years, and discussed lengthily during the 
negotiations which preceded the Treaties of Westphalia, 
Nymwegen, Ryswick and Utrecht, was asserted for the 
last time in 1748. 

After Marie Charlotte's wedding the Prince and 
Princesse de Tarente accompanied the bride and bride- 
groom to Germany. Then, leaving his wife at Hesse 
Cassel, the Prince went to Holland. So warm a welcome 
did he receive from his old friends at the Hague that a 
visit of three weeks was prolonged into a residence of 
three years, during which La Tremoille engaged in a war 
between the United Provinces and the Bishop of Munster, 
and received the governorship of the fortress of Bois- 
le-Duc. 

His mother's death in 1665 brought him back to 
France. Marie de La Tour's striking personality had 
impressed itself strongly on the inhabitants of Thouars, 
where she died and was buried. In a history of the town,^ 
we read that for many a year the inhabitants had trembled 
before the terrible duchess, not because she was unjust, 

1 Frederick of Arragon, King of Naples, who ascended the 
throne in 1496. 

Charlotte m. le Comte de Laval. 

Anne de Laval m. (151 1) Fran9ois de la Tremoille. 

Louis de La Trdmoille, 
1st Due de Thouars. 

I 
Claude, Due de Thouars. 

I 
Henri, Due de Thouars. 

I 
Charles Henry, Prince de Tarente. 

See Introduction to " M6moires de Charles de La Tremoille, Prince 
de Tarente," and " Les La Trdmoilles pendant cinq Si^cles," V., 202, 203. 
'^ Berthre de Bournisseaux, " Histoire de la Ville de Thouars depuis 
I'An 759 jusqu'en 1815 ..." (Niort, 1824). 



200 FROM THE CRUSADES 

but because they knew that to the uttermost farthing, 
with unbending severity, she would always extort from 
her husband's vassals the payment of every feudal due, 
alike in labour, in coin, and in kind. At the time when 
Thouars Castle was in building, the artisans and labourers 
\/ere so oppressed by her exactions that for long after- 
wards they cursed her name and her memory. Genera- 
tions later, at the time of the Revolution, when the mob 
broke into the chateau, hers was the only portrait which 
was desecrated. While the picture of the tyrannical 
Marie was covered with filth, those of her kinsfolk, many 
of them, were carried off by the townspeople to be hung 
in their houses as objects of veneration. Owing to her 
Protestant faith, which she had held firmly to the end, 
Marie's Catholic husband would not allow her to be buried 
with the other La Tremoilles in the consecrated Catholic 
church of Notre Dame. At the southern corner, therefore, 
of the main wing of the chateau a vault was prepared, and 
there the remains of Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne rest in 
peace, having escaped the fury of the Revolutionaries, 
who, leaving this Protestant grave unharmed, spent their 
wrath on the desecration of the tombs in the neighbouring 
chapel. Now and again, however, the ravages of time 
have threatened to accomplish that which revolutionary 
anger spared ; the eastern wall of the vault has more than 
once needed reparation, and when cracks appear in it 
the Thouarese say that it is because Marie de La Tour 
wants fresh air. 

After his mother's death, the Prince de Tarente with 
his wife and three children left Holland to take up his 
residence at Thouars with the old Duke Henry, who was 
now bedridden with gout. And there, occupied in 
administering his estates, and in occasionally presiding 




iDuilii'.t.tC dc Li Crr-cTuoillc, 6r (\' 'J ouafb'- Sic 



j4Pa'i.. tlii-^ Purr.- Mm it 



•"••/'■'•-' 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 201 

over the meetings of Breton deputies, Charles de La 
Tremoille passed the last seven years of his life. The 
differences which had always divided the Prince and 
Princess were increased when, in 1670, Tarente reverted 
to his father's faith, and was admitted by the Bishop of 
Angers into the Catholic Church. 

Madame de Tarente remained the staunchest of 
Protestants, and took her husband's change of religion in 
the most tragic manner. Her example was followed by 
her daughter Charlotte Amelie, who relates in her Memoirs 
how by her father's apostasy the household at Thenars 
became divided against itself. Nothing indicates more 
clearly the bitterness of religious strife in those days than 
the story of how the Prince's eldest son was separated 
from his mother and sister, and conveyed away to Angers, 
where six weeks' virtual imprisonment and the society 
of monks and priests reduced him to embracing his 
father's religion. 

Fearing that her daughter too would be forced into 
the Catholic Church, Madame de Tarente obtained from 
her kinswoman, the Queen of Denmark, an invitation for 
Charlotte Amelie to become lady-in-waiting at the Danish 
court. Then, its acceptance having been forbidden by 
the Prince de Tarente, who was devotedly attached to his 
daughter, the Princess surreptitiously obtained a pass- 
port from Louis XIV., and during her husband's absence 
at Paris set forth for Denmark. 

Meanwhile the King chanced to remark casually to 
Tarente that he heard his daughter was going to Den- 
mark. " No," replied the Prince, " I have refused my 
consent." " But I," said Louis, " have signed her 
passport." Forthwith, Tarente left the court and 
started for Thouars, hoping to be in time to prevent his 



202 FROM THE CRUSADES 

daughter's departure. At Blois he fell in with the 
travellers. There was a terrible scene between husband 
and wife, at which Charlotte Amelie was present. But 
Madame de Tarente won the day and carried off her 
daughter to Denmark. 

In high dudgeon the ladies parted from the Prince, whom 
they were never to see again, for, before the travellers 
arrived at Copenhagen, news reached them of La Tre- 
moille's sudden death at Thouars on September 14th, 
1672. 

Four of the Prince de Tarente's children survived him : 
two daughters, Charlotte Amelie the eldest, whose 
adventures at the Danish court are related in the next 
chapter ; Marie Sylvie Brabantine, who, born in 1666, 
died at Paris in 1693, apparently unmarried ; a third 
daughter, Henriette, bom in 1662, died in 1665 ; and two 
sons, Charles Belgique HoUande, who succeeded his father 
as Due de La Tremoille, and Frederic Guillaume, who, 
having entered the Church and become Abbe de Sainte 
Croix, later exchanged the ecclesiastical state for the 
army.^ 

1 See post, 260, and n., also Anselme, " Histoire Genealogique," IV., 
173. Bournisseaux, " Histoire de la Ville de Thouars," 202, says he 
remained in the Church, becoming Cardinal and Archbishop of Cambrai. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 203 



CHAPTER Vnii 

LA BONNE TARENTE AND HER DAUGHTER, AS THEY APPEAR 
IN THE LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE 

Our friends across the Channel, we know, have a 
faculty for seeing the ludicrous side of things in general, 
and of their foreign neighbours in particular. Many an 
English character stands impaled on French satire for as 
long as the French language shall last, and Germans have 
suffered even more from the brilliance of Gallic wit and 
the malice of Gallic raillery. 

But there is no malice, although some raillery and 
much wit, in the portrait which Madame de Sevigne in 
her famous letters draws of her German friend, Charles 
de La Tremoille's widow, the Princesse de Tarente, or 
la bonne Tarente as the letter-writer generally calls her. 

After the Prince's death, Madame de Tarente used to 
reside during the summer in the La Tremoille chateau of 
Vitre. There she found herself but two miles from the 
Marquise de Sevigne 's country seat of Les Rochers. The 
Princess and the Marchioness rapidly struck up a friend- 
ship. Both Madame de Tarente's royal connections and 
her travels in Europe deeply impressed Sevigne. " La 
bonne Tarente is related to all the royalties in Europe," she 
wrote. And on one of the rare occasions when she found 
the Princess out of mourning, " I am pleased to see that the 
health of Europe is good," exclaimed the Marchioness. 

1 This chapter appeared in The Englishwoman, and it is a pleasant 
duty to thank the Editor, Miss Goodman, for her kindness in permitting 
its reproduction. 



204 FROM THE CRUSADES 

In the eyes of Sevigne, who had never been out of 
France, Tarente's two visits to Denmark, and frequent 
sojournings in Holland, constituted her a great traveller. 
" That's what I call travelling," wrote the Marquise, 
and she took it in all seriousness when her friend 
asserted that she was never so well as when going round 
the world. 

Some journeys, short but formidable in those days of 
bad provincial roads, the Princess and the Marchioness 
undertook in company. Together they visited their 
country neighbours, and even went so far as the capital 
of their province, Rennes. In one remote country house 
they were surprised to find the most elegant repast they 
had partaken of for a long while : turtles and quails, 
peaches and pears as fine as those of the Hotel de Ram- 
bouillet at Paris, led them to reflect that money, even in 
the heart of the provinces, can procure anything. 

It was on one of the hottest days in August that the 
two ladies made what was nothing more or less than a 
triumphant entry into Rennes. This ceremony Madame 
de Sevigne describes in one of her liveliest letters. She tells 
how they were met a short distance out of the town by a 
company of guards, then by the Governor of the Province 
with two Presidents of provincial parlements and eight 
other dignitaries. " We stopped," writes the Marchioness, 
" we kissed, we perspired, we talked, not knowing what 
we said, we advanced in a six-horsed coach, followed by 
five such coaches and by six others drawn by four horses. 
We listened to trumpets, to drums, and to people who 
were all determined to shout out something . . . then, 
alighting at the Governor's house, we were received by 
his wife and four dames and four damsels of quality. We 
all kissed, men as well as women ! How odd it was ! 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 205 

But the Princess set the example and I followed with 
amiable alacrity. In the end, so intense was the heat, 
and so copiously were we perspiring, that our cheeks 
stuck together in perfect union. Extricating ourselves 
with difficulty, we returned to our coach, so dishevelled as 
to be quite unrecognisable." 

Once established in the country for the summer, it was 
seldom that the two friends could be induced to quit their 
peaceful parks and linden groves. There for some years, 
from 1675 until 1685, they were accustomed to spend 
July, August, and September, exchanging ceremonious 
visits or dropping in unexpectedly and vying with one 
another in the preparation of elaborate fricassees or simple 
alfresco luncheons. Sauntering along those garden walks 
of Les Rochers, which, still redolent of the atmosphere of 
the Hotel de Rambouillet, even to-day bear the names 
given them by the Pr^cieuse Marquise, "the Temperament 
of my Mother," " the Honour of my Daughter," " the 
Infinite," " the Echo," " the Solitary," these two high- 
born dames exchanged many a confidence and told many 
a tale on all manner of topics, ranging from drugs and dogs 
to daughters. 

The talk fell on dogs one day when Sevigne whistled to 
a neighbour's spaniel who crossed their path. " What ! 
you know how to call a dog ! " exclaimed her companion, 
marvelling at the variety of her friend's accomplishments. 
" I will send you one of the prettiest in the world." " No, 
thank you," rephed the Marquise, " I have decided not 
to be led into any such kind of attachment." 

Her protests were vain, however. For a day or two 
later there arrived at Les Rochers a servant carrying " a 
little dog's house, delicately perfumed and extremely 
beautiful." In it was a lovely little creature, " such ears. 



2o6 FROM THE CRUSADES 

such a silky coat, such sweet breath, as tiny as a sylphid, 
as fair as a fairy." 

" Never was I more surprised or embarrassed," writes 
the Marquise. " I wanted to send him away, but could 
not find it in my heart to do so. And so he stays, sleeping 
in his little house in my maid's room, and eating nothing 
but bread. His name is Fidele. He is so pretty, such a 
dear, such pretty little ways, such perfect behaviour. I 
am resolved not to love him, but he begins to grow fond 
of me, and I fear lest I may succumb. But if I did, how 
could I ever face Marphise [her little dog in Paris] ? 
For I have aspired to that perfection of never loving but 
one dog in defiance of M. de la Rochefoucauld's maxim 
that there may be many women who have never had a 
love affair, but very few who have had only one. The 
thought of Marphise obsesses me. I can't imagine what 
to say to her or how to excuse myself. This is the kind of 
thing that makes one untruthful. All I could do would 
be to tell her how the entanglement arose. It is just one 
of those embarrassments which I had made up my mind 
to avoid. What a striking example of human weakness is 
this disaster which has befallen me at Vitre ! " 

The gift of a lap-dog was only one of the many kind- 
nesses which la bonne Tarente pressed upon her somewhat 
reluctant friend. The Princess was one of those practical 
housewives, who have a remedy for every disease and 
every accident, and who, when accidents and diseases do 
not exist, insist on inventing them. She loved to relate 
the wonderful cures effected by her wonderful medicines. 
" She tells me she has studied physic in Germany," wrote 
the Marchioness, " but I think it must have been after the 
manner of the Medecin malgre lui." And, indeed, Tarente 
was inclined to hold with Moliere's " doctor, against his 
will," that phj'^sic is as necessary in health as in sickness. 




CHARLOTTE AMELIE DE LA TREMOILLE, 
PRINCESS OF ALTENBURG 

From a miniature at Middachten, belonging to Count Bentinck. 
photographed by Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 207 

But S6vign6 did not agree with her. " I am quite ready 
to take her nostrums when I am ill ; but why should I 
when I am well ? " she protested. 

When illness came, however, she was not so very docile 
a patient. Medicinal tea-drinking was then the vogue, 
and the Princess's family was much addicted to it. Her 
nephew, the Landgraf, so she said, took forty cups every 
day, but S6vign6 did not believe her. The Princess 
herself took twelve. Yet when she prescribed one modest 
little cup for the Marquise, her friend turned from it with 
horror, declaring it would make her sick. 

The Princess's passion for medicaments as well 
as her Teutonic wit (" she did not lack wit of a kind," 
wrote Sevigne), were fully compensated for by the fact 
that she too had a daughter, Charlotte Amehe, whom at 
the close of the last chapter we left arriving with her 
mother at the court of Denmark. 

Before her journey to Denmark, numerous husbands, 
among them two future kings of England, William of 
Orange and James, Duke of York, had been proposed for 
Charlotte Amelie. But at Copenhagen she herself 
conquered two illustrious hearts : George of Denmark, the 
King's brother, a handsome gallant prince, and Griffen- 
feld, the King's minister, a wine merchant's son who had 
risen rapidly to be the ablest diplomat in Europe, and one 
of the wisest statesmen Denmark has ever produced, both 
fell in love with her. 

The rival claims of those two suitors were discussed at 
length in the linden groves of Les Rochers and in Madame 
de S6vign6's letters to her daughter. All Griffenfeld's 
recommendations were eclipsed by his not being a gentle- 
man bom. " The mere thought of it is enough to make 
one faint," wrote the Marchioness, and Charlotte Amelie 



2o8 FROM THE CRUSADES 

shared her opinion, defying the King and Queen, who had 
determined that she should marry the minister. 

To the Prince, on the other hand, Mdlle. de La Tremoille 
was ready to give her heart. But for him the King and 
Queen had more ambitious designs, and eventually, in 
1687, they married him to the Princess Anne, afterwards 
Queen of England. 

Thus disappointed, Charlotte Amelie wept and entreated 
the King and Queen to send her back to France. But her 
royal cousins refused ; and the distressed maiden was 
reduced to pouring out her woes to her mother in 
voluminous letters, which were shown to Sevigne, and 
commented on unfavourably by that mistress of the 
epistolary art. Writing to her daughter, the Marquise 
described them as "in no style whatever, my dear, and 
filled with dear mamas and other childish epithets, 
although she is twenty." 

A war between Denmark and Sweden soon carried 
Mademoiselle's two suitors to the front. The minister, 
whom she was never to see again, took a dignified leave 
of his lady, entreating her to grant him her esteem 
if not her love. 

A year later, falsely accused by his enemies at court of 
plotting against the King, this eminent statesman, in spite 
of the excellent reforms he had accomplished in Denmark, 
was tried and condemned to death. Conducted to the 
scaffold, he was about to lay his head upon the block, 
when a messenger arrived to commute the death sentence 
into one of banishment. Some years later Griff enf eld 
died in exile. 

Mdlle. de La Tremoille was not long in recovering 
from her attachment to the Prince. Her ambition, so she 
confided to a friend, was now to be the widow of a Dutch- 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 209 

man with a castle. Some time after, a gentleman came to 
her saying that a friend of his was a Dutchman, and had a 
castle, and that he was so deeply in love with Made- 
moiselle, that if she married him, he would be sure to die 
of happiness in six months. Then he declared himself to 
be the friend, and Charlotte Amelie married him forthwith 
without waiting for the permission of her family. 

La bonne Tarente was furious, and flew to her neighbour 
for consolation. But Sevigne took Charlotte Amelie's 
part, maintaining that she had done quite right to marry 
this Count Anthony of Altenburg (Ochtensilbourg she 
called him with her mania for distorting German names) , 
who, although of somewhat equivocal origin, was a cousin 
of the King of Denmark, and the richest nobleman, and 
the most perfect gentleman in the world. 

The romantic story of Count Anthony's birth has 
formed the subject for several novels. His father, Count 
Anthony Gunther, had in early years contracted a secret 
marriage with a noble Hungarian lady, Elizabeth von 
Ungnad, of great beauty and many accomplishments. 
But the Count's mother had planned for her son a still 
greater alliance, and, through one of her courtiers, 
succeeded in gaining possession of the marriage contract 
and committing it to the flames. The lady Elizabeth, in 
despair at the destruction of her marriage lines, fled to a 
friend at whose castle she gave birth to the son who was 
to become Charlotte Amelie's husband. Count Gunther 
married a princess of Holstein, while Elizabeth was 
subsequently united to a nobleman of Friesland. In 
later years Count Gunther, repenting of the injury he had 
done his son, obtained the Emperor's permission to 
restore him to all his legitimate rights. Anthony eventu- 
ally succeeded his father as Count of Altenburg, and took 

C.R. P 



210 FROM THE CRUSADES 

his seat in the Imperial Diet, a privilege only accorded to 
the members of reigning houses. 

Charlotte Amelie, by marrying Anthony, had therefore 
made for herself a very brilliant match, " Yet," wrote 
Madame de Sevigne, " all Germany groans at the insult 
inflicted on the escutcheon of la bonne Tarente . . . who 
is very angry." But after a while the Princess was 
somewhat pacified, especially when there arrived letters 
telling of her daughter's wealth and happiness, and of 
the grand state she kept in her husband's dominions on 
the banks of the Weser, where she was entertaining the 
King and Queen of Denmark with all their court. 

But alas ! Count Anthony was in too great a hurry to 
keep the promise he had made when first urging his suit. 
Then he had undertaken to make his wife a widow six 
months after their marriage. He anticipated his engage- 
ment by eight weeks. Four months after her wedding 
the Countess of Altenburg had realised part of her 
ambition : she was the widow of a Dutchman, but not 
unhappily with a castle. 

For Count Anthony's daughter by a previous marriage 
claimed all his dominions and all his property for her 
husband, and persisted in the claim even when some 
months later the widowed Countess gave birth to a son. 

Beset by every kind of persecution, Charlotte Amelie 
took her child to Vienna to plead his cause at the Imperial 
Court. There she arrived travel-stained and weary, 
poverty stricken and in old-fashioned clothes, for it was 
only by selling her service of plate that she had succeeded 
in collecting enough money for the journey. The 
Viennese ladies-in-waiting laughed at her quaint appear- 
ance. But the Empress exclaimed : " That lady is the 
descendant of Kings, and it is rather for me to do her 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 211 

homage than for her to seek me." The Empress befriended 
her, and the infant Count was restored to his father's 
dominions. Charlotte Amelie's son lived to have a 
daughter, Charlotte Sophie,^ whose hand, after being 
solicited by six princes of reigning German houses, was 
eventually bestowed on Count Bentinck, the second son 
of William IH.'s trusted friend, the Earl of Portland. 

To Charlotte AmeHe's misfortunes after her husband's 
death, Madame de Sevigne's letters make no allusion. 
For this part of her story we are indebted to her own 
Memoirs, the original MS. of which is preserved in the 
Grand Ducal Library at Oldenburg." 

Five years after Charlotte AmeHe's marriage the inter- 
course between her mother and the Marchioness came to 
an end. Then by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
in 1685, the Princess de Tarente was driven from France. 
Previous to that year she had been free to exercise her 
own religion, " to work out her own damnation in perfect 
liberty," as her quizzical CathoHc neighbour was pleased 
to word it, " and to indulge in as many fasts and retreats 
as we who possess the reality." But in 1685, the good 
Tarente returned to her Fatherland, to Frankfort, where 
she died of smallpox in 1692. Years after they had 
parted, Madame de Sevigne looked back tenderly on their 
friendship. Writing to her daughter in 1689, she refers 
to a story which reminds her of the tales told by " the 
good Princesse de Tarente." 

1 See her Life and Times, by Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, in two 
volumes, published by Hutchinson, 191 1. 

2 See ante, 184 and note 2. 



P 2 



212 



FROM THE CRUSADES 



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TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 213 



CHAPTER IX 

"a lieutenant of MADAME DE MAINTENON," LA PRINCESSE 
DES URSINS. l642(?) — 1722 

Since the fifteenth century, we have been following 
exclusively the fortunes of the eldest, the Thouars branch 
of the La Tremoille family. We must now go back a 
hundred years to the time when from Fran5ois de La 
Tremoille's younger sons, Georges and Claude, there 
sprang the houses of Olonne and Noirmoustier. The 
Counts of Olonne, endowed later with the marquisate of 
Rohan, continued until 1708. Perhaps the best known 
among them was Count Louis, who was the friend of 
Saint Evremond, with whom he corresponded on the 
relative merits of Burgundy and Champagne.^ 

The house of Noirmoustier, endured but a few years 
longer than that of Olonne. It died out in 1733. Its 
barons rose to be marquises in the sixteenth, and dukes in 
the seventeenth century. And it was towards the end of 
its existence, that this branch of the family produced one 
of the most notable of all the La Tremoilles, Marie Anne 
de Talleyrand, Princesse de Chalais, later Princesse des 
Ursins. 

The La Tremoille tree had already borne two women 
famous in war ; it now brought forth one, Madame des 
Ursins, who was no less renowned in diplomacy. Had 
she lived in our time she might have been described as a 

^ Tallemant des Reaux, " Historiettes," ed. Monmerque, II. 429. 



214 FROM THE CRUSADES 

"militant," for even Sainte-Beuve, although he relegates 
her to the second rank among stateswomen, admits that 
she was equal to upsetting at least ten governments. 

Three clever women, Frangoise d'Aubigne, Marquise de 
Maintenon, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and 
Marie Anne de La Tremoille, Princesse des Ursins, in the 
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, played 
important parts in European politics. But of the three, 
we may safely assert our La Tremoille Princess to have 
been the cleverest. The numerous volumes of her 
correspondence, which for more than a hundred years 
have been appearing, all prove the significance of her 
action during that critical period of European history 
extending from the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1698, until the 
death of Louis XIV. in 1715. There is no doubt that at 
this time her diplomacy contributed to introduce the 
Bourbons into Spain, and to establish them firmly on the 
Spanish throne.-^ 

Marie Anne de La Tremoille was born about 1642, the 
precise year is uncertain. Her great grandmother, the 
famous or infamous Madame de Sauves, figures in the 
Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois as one of the most 
attractive and one of the most unscrupulous members of 
Henry III.'s dissolute Court. Charlotte de Semblangay, 
Madame de Sauves, who, for her second husband, married 
Francois de La Tremoille, Marquis de Noirmoustier, must 
have been extremely beautiful ; a veritable Circe Mar- 
guerite calls her. And not unnaturally all the courtiers 

1 On La Princesse des Ursins a whole library has been written. The 
works chiefly consulted for this Chapter are : the Due de La Tremoille's 
" Madame des Ursins et la Succession en Espagne (six vols.) ; Geoiiroy, 
" Lettres Inedites de la Princesse des Ursins," (1S59) ; and " Lettres 
Inedites de Madame de Maintenon et de Madame des Ursins " (1826) ; 
Fran9ois Combes " La Princesse des Ursins" (185S) ; and St. Beuve's 
essay in the " Causeries du Lundi," V., 319 et seq. 



r 








V\\ 







FRANCOIS DE LA TREMOILLE, MARQUIS DE NOIRMOUSTIER 
From a drawing by Benjamin Foulon 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 215 

were in love with her, but especially the two royal princes, 
Marguerite's brother, Frangois, Duke of Alen9on, and her 
husband, Henry of Navarre. Indeed, Marguerite would 
have us believe that it was Charlotte who first caused a 
coolness between herself and her husband. 

Her gift for intrigue, Madame de Sauves apparently 
bequeathed to her grandson, La Princesse des Ursins' 
father, Louis de La Tremoille, who exercised it in another 
direction. Like his cousin, Henry Charles, Louis de La 
Tremoille was an eminent Frondeur ; and as such he is 
frequently mentioned in the brilliant Memoirs of his 
friend, the Cardinal de Retz. So skilfully did Louis 
succeed in steering the barque of his fortune over the 
shoals and quicksands of this civil war that, escaping 
disgrace and imprisonment, he succeeded in 1650, in 
securing a dukedom, although, on account of his participa- 
tion in the Fronde, he could not obtain its registration. 
So the title of Duke of Noirmoustier remained merely 
honorary until 1707. 

Louis married Renee Julie Aubry, who belonged to one 
of those leading legal families knovm in France as la 
noblesse de robe ; and on his death, in 1666, he left six 
children : a son Antoine Frangois, styled the Duke of 
Royan and Noirmoustier ; a second son, Joseph Emmanuel, 
who entered the Church and became a Cardinal ; another 
son Robert who died young ; and three daughters, Marie 
Anne, who became the famous Princesse des Ursins ; 
Yolande Julie, Marquise de Royan ; and Louise Angelique, 
Duchesse de Lanti.-"- While plentifully endowed with 
brains, this generation of the younger La Tremoilles was 
curiously afflicted with physical infirmity, for the Duke, 
after an attack of small-pox became blind, Robert was 

• There were other children who died before their father. 



2i6 FROM THE CRUSADES 

dumb, the Cardinal a hunchback, and the Princesse des 
Ursins all her life a sufferer from defective sight. 

The adventurous career of Marie Anne de La Tremoille 
began young. When she was only about one and twenty 
her husband, Adrien Blaise de Talleyrand,^ Prince de 
Chalais, killed his adversary in a duel, and was obliged to 
flee from France." His young wife followed him, and for 
a while they lived in Spain. 

During the four years of her married life in Paris, la 
Princesse de Chalais had made her debut in the society 
of the Salons. The first glory of the greatest, the 
H6tel de Rambouillet , had by that time faded, but other 
Salons had succeeded it, and the most distinguished was 
the Hotel d'Albret, which was the Salon frequented by 
La Princesse de Chalais and her husband. Here our 
Princess used to meet a woman who was eventually to 
exert a powerful influence over her career, Frangoise 
d'Aubigne, then the poverty-stricken widow of the poet 
Scarron, but later the famous Madame de Maintenon. 
In after days when both these great ladies had attained 
to the height of their fortune they used to talk together of 
these early experiences. And the Princess would tell 
how as a young wife at the H6tel d'Albret, she was piqued 
to see the bourgeoise Madame Scarron, who was but a few 
years her senior,^ surrounded by great wits and statesmen 
deferentially hanging on to this young nobody's words 
while she, a Princess, was left to chatter with the 
younger members of the company. Then Madame de 
Maintenon, would retort that, after all, her lot in those 
days was not so greatly to be envied for often did she 

1 Of the same family as the great diplomatist I'Abbe Talleyrand. 

2 The date of this duel is variously stated, but it probably took 
place between 1663 and 1666. 

^ She was born in 1635. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 217 

long to escape from the high seriousness of her elders, 
and to join in the noisy prattle of those of her own age.^ 

After some years residence in Spain, the Prince and 
Princess de Chalais proceeded to Rome, and thence they 
decided to go to Venice. The Prince went on before his 
wife ; but, at the village of Maestro not far from Venice, 
he was taken suddenly ill and died in the year 1670. 

It was at Rome that Marie Anne received the news of 
her husband's death, and at Rome she continued to 
reside, although there was now nothing to prevent her 
returning to France. But in the Holy City she had 
already made many influential friends, among whom was 
Cesar d'Estrees, Bishop of Laon, the representative of 
Louis XIV. at the papal court, and soon^ to be made a 
Cardinal. 

As was frequently the custom of widows in those days, 
the Princess for some years after her husband's death 
resided in a convent. But her retirement did not prevent 
her from visiting the chief salons of Roman society, 
where she seems to have been greatly admired. Although 
not exactly a beauty, she was extremely attractive, with 
an animated expressive countenance, beautiful blue eyes, 
a charming mouth, and a very fine figure. Moreover, 
her manners were ingratiating, her voice melodious, and 
her conversation highly entertaining. Dulness and 
melancholy she could not abide, and she sympathised 
with her sister the Duchesse de Lanti, whose first require- 
ment when engaging a gardener was that he should look 
gay and be cheerful. 

Brilliant as a diamond, the Princess had something of 
the hardness of that jewel. Yet to her first husband she 

' Madame de Caylus, " Souvenirs " (Mich, et Poujoulat, 1839), 
Ser. III. Vol. VIII., 47S. 
2 1674. 



2i8 FROM THE CRUSADES 

must have been really attached, or she would not have 
committed what the worldly Madame de Sevigne de- 
scribed as "the madness" of following him into exile; 
and her efforts to make the fortunes of her relatives 
would indicate that she was not devoid of ordinary 
famUy affection. But that she lacked any true tender- 
ness of heart may be seen in various passages of her 
letters : for example, where she marvels at her sister's 
grief at the death of her little girl, because " after all she 
was not her only child," or where on the death of a baby 
of two, she writes to the parent : "It can cause you no 
great sorrow for at that age you could not know whether 
the infant would bring you joy or sadness." Had the 
Princess herself been a mother, perhaps she might have 
written differently. But, as we shall see, ambition, not 
love, was her devouring passion. 

And this lofty ambition she was soon in a position to 
gratify. For through the Cardinal d'Estrees, she received 
a proposal of marriage from the first noble in Rome,^ 
Flavio, Duke of Bracciano, a grandee of Spain and the 
head of the Roman house of Orsini. Ever since the 
twelfth century, when leaving their native town of 
Spoleto,^ the Orsini had settled in Rome, they had been 
eminent for their number, their valour, their wealth, and 
the strength of their towers. The honours of the Senate, 
of the Sacred College, and even of the Papacy^ had been 
theirs ; they had furnished with queens, France, Naples 
and Navarre ; and during their prolonged rivalry with the 
Colonna, one large district of Rome extending along the 



^ " Le premier la'ique de Rome," St. Simon calls him (" Memoires," 
ed. Regnier, V., 41). 

2 Their remoter origin may have been French and they may have 
been allied to the famous fifteenth century family of Ursins. 

^ No less than six times. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 219 

left bank of the Tiber, from the Ponte St. Angelo to the 
Ponte de 'Quattro Capi, was little more than an Orsini 
fortified camp. 

As we shall see, to identify Louis XIV. with her personal 
fortunes was ever a part of the Princess's policy, and so it 
was not until she had obtained permission from " the 
Great King," that Marie Anne de La Tremoille, then 
about thirty, consented to wed this middle-aged widower 
of fifty-five.-^ 

Hitherto the Princess had been merely a leader of 
society. But now as the first citizenness of Rome, and 
as mistress of a leading Roman Salon, she began to serve 
a political apprenticeship which was to fit her for a 
greater career. It was in Rome that she acquired that 
knowledge of men's hearts which rendered her one of the 
most eminent diplomatists of her day,^ And indeed, 
it is difficult to imagine any city or any circle better fitted 
for such a training. Rome the centre of the European 
western world, with its pathetic ruins of so many civilisa- 
tions, with its relics of so many political systems, with its 
magnificent monuments, the scattered fragments of which 
surpass the most eloquent description, can never fail to 
fire even the most sluggish imagination. 

The Rome of the Duchess of Bracciano was beginning 
to be Rome as we know it. For several decades the city 
had been enjoying comparative peace. Freed from 
foreign invaders by the retirement of the French from 
Italy and from intestine strife by the cessation of the 
feuds between the great families, Roman nobles had had 
leisure for the beautification of their city and especially 

1 The Duke of Bracciano was born in 1620, his second marriage took 
place in 1675. 

^ La personne du jnonde la plus propre a I'intrigue, St. Simon calls 
her, adding et qui avail passi sa vie a Rome. 



220 FROM THE CRUSADES 

of their private palaces. In 1675, the great artistic 
genius of the age, the Michael Angelo of the century, 
Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, at once sculptor, painter and 
architect, was adorning with his monuments the squares, 
the palaces and the churches of Rome. Our Duchess 
must have gazed with wonder on the great works of his 
hand, on the grand colonnade before St. Peter's, on the 
Barberini palace, on the dolphins of the ingenious Barberini 
fountain in the square, and on the elephant bearing its 
ancient obelisk in front of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. 
But nowhere did the great artist more lavishly display 
his gifts than in the fountains which adorn the Piazza 
Navona, where the Duchess now came to live. 

From very ancient times the Piazza Navona, the Circus 
Agonalis^ of imperial Rome, had been the bustling centre 
of civic life. And now, in 1675, its importance had by no 
means dwindled. Here, as from time immemorial, was 
still transacted the business of those lotteries which even 
to-day figure large in an Italian's life. Here on high 
holidays, the square was flooded for the celebration of 
those famous Naumachia, which in the following century 
were to entertain the exiled Stuarts. Here in the balcony 
of the Orsini palace," many a scene of pomp and splendour 
was to be enacted for the benefit of the Roman populace. 
This great mansion stood at the southern angle of the 
square on the site now occupied by the Palazzo Braschi. 
Close at hand was the mutilated statue of Patroclus, on 
which for years the Romans had been wont to hang 
satirical remarks about their fellow citizens. Owing to 
the skill of the tailor Pasquino in composing these gibes, 
the statue was named after him, the lampoons themselves 

1 Agona became Nagona, hence the modern Navona. 
^ Later, in the eighteenth century, the Orsini resided, as they do 
now, in part of the Theatre of Marcellus. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 221 

christened Pasquinadi, and the name of the sartorial wit 
extended to the neighbouring palace, so that the Palace 
of the Orsini became the Palazzo Pasquino. 

A circumstance which seems to be strangely discordant 
with the high dignity of the Orsini family appears in one 
of the Princess's letters where we find that the outer 
rooms of the palace, probably those giving on the square, 
were let to some thirty shopkeepers. Moreover, these 
tenants were not even of good reputation, for years later, 
after the Duke's death, and as the result of police investi- 
gations, one shop was discovered to be a smugglers' den, 
and another a nest of gamblers. Yet they and the 
Duchess depended for their water-supply on the self-same 
fountain, that in the palace court-yard ; Bernini's foun- 
tains in the square were apparently only for show. And 
we can well imagine the tradesmen's wives, bearing bronze 
pitchers poised skilfully on their heads, eternally gossip- 
ing round the fountain in the court-yard. 

Notwithstanding its shop frontage, the Palazzo Pasquino 
was one of the most princely residences in Rome, filled 
with costly and countless tapestries, pictures, statues and 
all manner of artistic treasures. And here the brilliant 
Duchess, in all the maturity of her dazzling charms, opened 
a salon which became a second Hotel de Rambouillet. To 
the Pasquino Palace for some seventeen years flocked all 
that was most distinguished in Rome, — Cardinals, princes, 
ambassadors, and great ladies, attracted by the wit and 
the charm of Madame la Duchesse and of her sister, 
Louise Angelique whom she had married to an Italian 
nobleman, the Duke of Lanti. The comedies and 
concerts given by the Duchess of Bracciano at the Palazzo 
Pasquino were the great events of Roman society, talked 
of and written about for months beforehand. In a letter 



222 FROM THE CRUSADES 

to the Duchess of Lanti in 1685, the Princess mentions as 
one of her visitors a Mr. Talbot. This may have been the 
famous Dick Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel/ a veritable Don 
Juan and a bigoted Roman Catholic, who was sus- 
pected of attempting to murder Cromwell and of 
being implicated in the Popish Plot, For the latter 
offence he was in exile between 1679 and 1685, and 
may very likely have visited the Duchess of Bracciano 
in Rome. 

In the gay salon of the Palazzo Pasquino there was one 
person who was not happy. The master of the house felt 
himself overshadowed by his brilliant and imposing wife, 
who was also his intellectual superior. Moreover, the 
elaborate costly entertainments the Duchess devised 
tended to increase the financial embarassments from 
which for some years the Duke had been suffering ; for 
his estates though vast were heavily mortgaged. These 
causes probably led to an estrangement between husband 
and wife which, by the year 1685, had become so serious, 
that the Duchess was glad to leave her husband and to 
visit France. 

Between that date and 1698, when the Duke died, his 
wife spent long periods in her native land. She wrote 
frequently to her friends in Italy from Paris, Versailles, 
Fontainebleau, Vichy, and also from St. Germain, whither 
she had gone to be present at the confinement of her 
friend, the exiled Queen of England. During these 
visits our Duchess was careful to cultivate court friend- 
ships, renewing her acquaintance with Frangoise 
d'Aubigne, now Marquise de Maintenon and wife of 
Louis XIV., ingratiating herself with Lc Grand Monarque 
himself, and with his minister of foreign affairs, le Marquis 

1 See "Dictionary of National Biography," under Talbot, Richard. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 223 

de Torcy, and impressing all these personages with her 
ability and her desire to serve France. 

One of her most valuable friends at the French court 
was La Marechale de Noailles, who, despite her large 
family of twenty-one children, was ever ready to further 
her friend's fortunes at the French court. Adrien 
Maurice, the eldest of the twenty-one, had married 
Madame de Maintenon's favourite niece. Mademoiselle 
d'Aubigne. So Madame de Noailles was a powerful 
person at Versailles ; and while she did her best for the 
Princess, Madame des Ursins in return tried to marry off 
some of the Marechale's daughters. " If only you will 
get me this appointment in Spain," she wrote, " at 
Madrid I can find husbands for a dozen of your girls." 

Returning to Rome, the Princess there followed the 
same policy of self-advancement which she had pursued 
in France. Thus she succeeded in gaining a footing at the 
papal court, where the Pope, Innocent XII., declared her 
advice to be better than that of many cardinals, and at the 
Spanish embassy, where Cardinal Portocarrero, Bishop 
of Toledo, became her intimate friend. It is impossible 
to exaggerate the importance of these friendships, which 
were later to exercise a powerful influence not only on the 
Princess's personal career, but on the course of European 
politics.^ For at Rome and elsewhere, these friendships 
were to prove very useful to the cause of France. 

It was Portocarrero who, shortly before the Duke's 
death, effected a reconciliation between the Princess and 
her husband, so that Bracciano when he died left his 
widow all his vast domains which, however, were 
heavily burdened with debt. Moreover, on her husband's 
decease, Marie Anne found herself involved in a law suit 

» See post, 228. 



224 FROM THE CRUSADES 

with a rich Roman noble, Don Livio Odescalchi, who 
contested the succession contending that the Duke had 
adopted him as his son and heir. The legal proceedings 
continued for some years, during which the Duchess, as 
was her wont with those who opposed her, wrote numerous 
letters to her friends which were most damaging to her 
adversary, whom she did not hesitate to describe as 
ce crasseux de prince. In the end, and partly through 
the intervention of Louis XIV., Don Livio purchased 
Orsini's country estates and the title of Duke of Bracciano 
for 2,000,000 livres, while leaving to the Duchess the 
Palazzo Pasquino with its furniture and the right to style 
herself Princess Orsini, or, as she was more commonly 
called " Princesse des Ursins." 

After her husband's death the Princess's relations with 
the French court became closer, and her salon more 
political. Now, almost equally with the Ambassador, 
she was regarded as the representative of France in Rome. 
In 1699, Louis XIV. granted her a pension. And about 
the same time she was permitted to affix the arms of 
France to the gates of her palace, a privilege which the 
King had withdrawn from Bracciano on account of his 
having taken the Pope's part in a dispute about the 
status of the French ambassador in Rome. 

Of the restoration of the French arms to her palace 
wall, Madame des Ursins made a great public event. No 
pomp or pageantry was omitted. The occasion was a 
high day and a holiday in Rome^ In the morning a vast 
throng assembled in the piazza to listen in silence while 
the praises oi Le Grand Monarque were read in the palace 
balcony. In the evening the halls of the Palazzo Pasquino 
were crowded with a distinguished company of great 
Roman ladies, ambassadors, cardinals and cavallieri, 




MARIE ANNE DE LA TREMOILLE, PRINCESSE DES URSINS 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 225 

before whom artistes from the Pope's own chapel per- 
formed a cantata specially composed and representing 
three majestic personages, Glory, Religion and the Tiber. 

The French Ambassador, the Prince of Monaco, who 
was an intimate friend of Madame des Ursins, did not 
neglect to send "the Great King" a detailed account 
of all these proceedings. 

With Monaco's predecessor at Rome, the Cardinal de 
Bouillon, Madame des Ursins had been on anything but 
amicable terms, for she had a faculty for making enemies 
as well as friends. Complaints of " this little man who is 
craftier than you could possibly imagine," fill pages of the 
Princess's letters to la Marechale. Involved in this 
quarrel with the Cardinal was the Princess's brother, the 
Abbe de Noirmoustiers, whom she had brought to Rome 
and raised to an influential position only, as she com- 
plained, that he might side with " her implacable enemy " 
against her. 

According to the Duke of Berwick,-*- James II. 's natural 
son, who visited the Princess in Rome, the quarrel turned on 
the most trivial questions, mere matters of etiquette : the 
Cardinal felt slighted because, at the time of Bracciano's 
death, he had been left to dine alone in an ante-chamber 
of the Palazzo Pasquino, and had not, as etiquette 
required, been invited to the Duchess's room, there to 
partake of his repast at the foot of her bed. On her part, 
the Duchess was furious because the Cardinal had denied 
her what she claimed as the special privilege of the Orsini 
family, the right to hang her palace with purple, the 
mourning colour of kings and cardinals. We suspect, 
however, that the true cause of the quarrel lay deeper 

1 "Memoires du Marechal de Ber-wick," ed. Mich, et Poujoulat, 
Ser. III., Vol. v., 345. 

C.R. Q 



226 FROM THE CRUSADES 

than these querulous quibblings, and that it sprang from 
a very natural jealousy between the accredited ambassador 
of France and the highly trusted but unofficial agent of 
the French King. A similar coolness arose when the 
Princess went to Spain, and in both cases she obtained 
the recall of her enemy. 

Bouillon's successor, the Prince of Monaco, profiting 
from his predecessor's experience, was careful not to 
openly oppose this all-powerful lady ; at the same time, 
determining not to be under her thumb, he declined her 
repeated invitation to reside in her palace ; and he adroitly 
urged as his reason just that consideration which such a 
queen of intriguers would most readily appreciate, viz. : 
that a public association with the Ambassador might 
weaken the indirect influence which it was important for 
her to exercise in favour of France. 

A time was now approaching when Madame des Ursins 
was to need the help of every friend and the employment 
of every influence, whether secret or avowed. For in the 
crisis to which Europe, in the last years of the century, 
was rapidly hastening, the Princess perceived a field for 
the employment of her diplomatic gifts far wider than any 
upon which she had entered hitherto. And here in our 
personal history we must pause for a moment to take a 
bird's-eye view of the condition of Europe in 1698 and 
1699. 

In those years the great Spanish Empire upon which the 
sun never set, that vast assemblage of states built up 
throughout a hundred years by an accumulation of 
inheritances, was threatened with dissolution. The child- 
less weakling who now sat upon the throne of Charles V. 
and Philip II. was swiftly sinking into his grave, while 
some half-dozen great princes of Europe with covetous 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 227 

eyes were watching his decline, eager to pounce on his 
possessions. The Duke of Savoy, the Duke of Orleans, 
the King of Portugal, the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the 
Emperor Leopold and Louis XIV. all considered they had 
a right to don the crown about to fall from the feeble 
head of King Charles II. of Spain. 

But outside this group of claimants there was a power 
which had already asserted its strength in Europe and was 
prepared, if need were, to do so again. The power or twin 
powers of Holland and England, now united under one 
ruler, William, Stadtholder of Holland and King of 
England, were determined to prevent any one European 
prince from entering into the undivided inheritance of 
Philip XL These maritime powers, as they were called in 
the diplomatic parlance of the day, negotiated the two 
partition treaties of 1698 and 1700. By the first the 
Spanish dominions were divided between Louis' son, the 
Dauphin, the Emperor's son, the Archduke Charles, and 
the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, whose share included the 
kingdom of Spain. Only a few months after the signing 
of this treaty by France, England and Holland, the death 
of the Electoral Prince rendered another treaty necessary. 
Therefore, at the Hague in March, 1700, the three Powers 
executed another partition of the Spanish dominions 
between the two remaining princes, the Dauphin and the 
Archduke Charles, to the latter being assigned the crown 
of Spain. 

But while the three northern powers were thus carving 
up the Spanish dominions, the Spaniards themselves 
had their own views as to the fate of their kingdom and 
its dependencies ; and one idea they held most strongly : 
they were determined that never should the monarchy 
of Philip II. be dismembered, and that whosoever, 

Q2 



228 FROM THE CRUSADES 

whether Habsburg or Bourbon, succeeded to a part, 
must necessarily succeed to the whole. 

Simultaneously therefore with the negotiations at the 
Hague were proceeding others at Madrid. These were 
carried on by the French and the Austrian Ambassadors 
in the interests, on the one hand, of the Bourbon, and on 
the other of the Habsburg claimant. Each ambassador 
was endeavouring to persuade Charles II. to make a will 
bequeathing the whole of his dominions to the claim- 
ant he (the ambassador) supported — in the case of 
Comte d'Harcourt, the French Ambassador, it was the 
Dauphin or one of his sons ; in the case of Comte 
d'Harrach, the Austrian Ambassador, it was the Archduke 
Charles. 

Louis XIV. therefore was conducting two sets of 
negotiations in contrary directions ; while at the Hague 
he was promising the maritime powers that the Spanish 
dominions should not pass into one hand, at Madrid he 
was straining every effort to obtain the whole inheritance 
for a member of his family. And in the end it was the 
French Ambassador at Madrid who won the day. In 
addition to his own brains, which were some of the 
sharpest, Comte d'Harcourt was able to employ in the 
French interest the influence of Portocarrero, who had 
now returned to Madrid from Rome, where La Princesse 
des Ursins had won him for the French cause. At length 
the scale was finally turned in favour of France, by a 
letter received by Charles II. from the Pope, Innocent XII. 
He, too, Madame des Ursins had won for France, and now 
he wrote advising the King to leave his dominions to the 
grandson of Louis XIV. Charles II., who was a devoted 
son of Mother Church, obeyed the Pope's behest, and on 
October 2nd, 1700, made a wiU leaving to Philip, Duke of 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 229 

AnjoUj the Dauphin's second son, the monarchy of Spain 
with all its dependencies. 

A month later, on November ist, Charles died. There 
were few who knew the contents of the King's will. The 
French Ambassador himself was ignorant of the success 
of his intrigues. 

The announcement of a decision which was of such vast 
importance not only for Spain but for the whole of western 
Europe attracted to the palace a curious crowd. The 
will was opened in the Council Chamber of the late King, 
in the presence of his Junta or Cabinet. What happened 
outside has been graphically described by St. Simon.^ 
" All the rooms adjoining the Council Chamber, where the 
will was being read," he writes, " were crowded almost to 
suffocation. The foreign ambassadors were conspicuous 
as they pushed eagerly forward, each anxious to be the 
first to inform his court of the choice made by the King. 
Blecourt ^ was there, for he was as ignorant as they re- 
specting the secret. Count d'Harrach, the Emperor's 
ambassador, was standing just in front of the door of the 
Council Chamber. He bore himself triumphantly, for he 
relied upon the will's being in favour of the Archduke, 
and his hopes for his own future were high. At last the 
door opened for a moment and there appeared the Duke 
of Abrantes, a man greatly feared for his malicious wit. 
He had slipped out of the Council Chamber as soon as the 
reading of the will was over for the enjoyment of dis- 
closing the great secret. Instantly he was beset by the 
crowd. He gazed calmly upon them, but maintained 
a solemn silence. Blecourt approached. The Duke 
regarded him vacantly, and then, turning away his head, 

1 In his " Memoires," ed. Regnier, VII., 291 — 292. 

' The French Ambassador who had succeeded Harcourt. 



230 FROM THE CRUSADES 

appeared to be searching for some other person. This 
action surprised Blecourt, and was interpreted by all as 
auguring ill for France. Suddenly the Duke seemed to 
become aware of the presence of Count d'Harrach. A 
joyful expression illumined his countenance, and throwing 
himself into his arms, he exclaimed aloud in Spanish, 
' Sefior, it is with great pleasure ' — here he made a 
pause and again embraced him, ' Yes, Sefior, it is with 
heartfelt joy that from henceforth ' — here he made a 
second pause. ' It is indeed with infinite satisfaction 
that I now part from you and take a final leave of the 
august house of Austria.' Count d'Harrach's astonish- 
ment and indignation deprived him of all power of 
utterance. He stood quite still for a moment, and then 
left the room, fuming with rage and disappointment." 

In London and Amsterdam, in Vienna and Rome, where 
no one knew of Louis' intrigues at Madrid, the great 
question was whether the French King, in defiance of the 
Partition Treaty, would accept for his grandson the 
bequest of Charles 11. Madame des Ursins, who had so 
effectually seconded Harcourt's scheming, can have had 
no doubt as to the result of that conference, which Louis, 
as soon as the contents of the will were communicated to 
him, made a point of holding with his ministers. And 
there can have been no surprise in that astute lady's mind 
when shortly afterwards she heard that Louis had sum- 
moned his grandson in order to declare to him his decision 
in the presence of the whole court. " Sir," said Louis, 
pompously addressing the young Prince, " the King of 
Spain has made you King ; the grandees invite you ; the 
people long for you, and I consent ; to be a good Spaniard 
will henceforth be your first duty ; but remember that 
you were born a Frenchman." On November 24th 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 231 

Philip V. was proclaimed King of Spain ; and a few days 
later, on December 4th, the new King, then a youth of 
seventeen, set forth for his dominions, his grandfather 
bidding him farewell in majestic words which have 
become famous : " Go, henceforth the Pyrenees have 
ceased to exist." 

At first it seemed as if Europe would quietly acquiesce 
in the accession of a Bourbon to the throne of Spain. 
Europe was tired of war, and especially England, which 
hitherto had borne the brunt of the great struggle against 
Louis XIV. In England, William, who would willingly 
have reopened the conflict, was becoming more and more 
unpopular, and the Tories, who were then the peace party, 
were in the ascendant. Had not Louis himself committed 
an extraordinary blunder there might have been no war 
of the Spanish succession. On September 6th, 1701, the 
exiled King, James II., died at St. Germain, and straight- 
way, Louis, violating a clause in the Treaty of Ryswick 
which pledged him to withdraw all support from the 
exiled Stuarts, recognised his son James as King of 
England. Instantly English apathy vanished. Whigs and 
Tories joined in condemning the action of the French court. 
From London and from every corner of the realm resounded 
a cry for war. Assured of England's help, HoUand and 
Austria took up arms ; the Archduke Charles having 
formally laid claim to the Spanish monarchy on 
May 15th, 1702, a declaration of war was published 
simultaneously by England, Holland and the Empire. 

In the direction of this war and indeed in the course of 
European history for the next fourteen years Madame 
des Ursins was to play a prominent part. On hearing 
that the Great Monarch had accepted King Charles's 
bequest for his grandson, the Princess had written con- 



232 FROM THE CRUSADES 

gratulating Louis on the " great event," which, as she put 
it, " seemed to have happened expressly in order to raise 
His Majesty's glory far above the imagination of man- 
kind." At the same time in a letter to Torcy she rejoiced 
over the accomplishment of that affair, which for fear of the 
misfortunes it might give rise to had caused all Europe to 
tremble, but was now by the merit of the King alone, the 
sovereign arbiter, arranged for the peace of Christendom. 
" What glory, O my God," she concluded, " but also 
what moderation ! " 

In the accomplishment of this great affair Madame des 
Ursins was not slow to discern a way to her own advance- 
ment, and in what manner with admirable lucidity she 
explained in a letter to la Marechale. Philip must be 
provided with a wife, wrote this wily intriguante, and as 
Philip himself was but a youth his wife also must be 
young. She would require therefore an accomplished 
woman of the world to direct her, one preferably who 
should be devoted to French interests and willing to 
exercise French influence at Madrid ; but who was so 
fitted to occupy such a post as the writer of this letter ? 
Had she not effectively proved her skill in diplomacy and 
her devotion to the interests of France ? Was she not 
also the widow of a grandee of Spain, and peculiarly fitted 
for life at the Spanish court by her knowledge of the 
language and her earlier residence in the country ? 

As to the bride who should be chosen for the young 
King, Madame des Ursins also had her views. 

And she suggested Marie Louise, second daughter of 
Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, sister to the graceful 
and popular Marie Adelaide, the wife of the Duke of 
Burgundy, the Dauphin's eldest son. 

The letter containing all these proposals la Marechale 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 233 

showed to Madame de Maintenon, who doubtless com- 
municated its contents to the King. And Louis seriously 
considered them. The eminent success of the Duke of 
Burgundy's marriage with Marie Adelaide, who was a 
great favourite at court, inclined the King to select 
another bride from that family. Moreover, as Victor 
Amadeus was aspirant to the crown of Spain, the alliance 
would have the advantage of uniting two claims. And 
so Madame des Ursins' advice was adopted ; and the 
King decided to marry his grandson to the Savoyard 
Princess, and to make Madame des Ursins her chief 
lady-in-waiting or Camerera Major. 

Early in May, 1701, the news of her prospective appoint- 
ment reached Madame des Ursins. On June 20th she 
received from His Catholic Majesty, King Philip V., the 
official announcement that she had been appointed 
Camerera Major and had been chosen to accompany his 
bride to Madrid. But she had already begun her prepara- 
tions for departure, and had ordered her travelling coach 
and the liveries for her servants. 

On September nth Philip married Marie Louise -^ by 
proxy at Turin. The bride was but a child of thirteen, 
very young to be sent abroad in such troubled times and 
into such a disturbed country. Nevertheless, only a few 
days after the wedding, accompanied by her confessor and 
a suite of Italian ladies and gentlemen, she set forth for 
her husband's kingdom. At Villafranca, a port of Savoy, 
not far from Nice, the Queen met Madame des Ursins, and 
the first impression which this great lady made upon the 
royal bride appears to have been favourable. From 
Villafranca the company proceeded by sea to Antibes. 

1 By her mother, Anne d'Orleans, daughter of Henrietta Maria of 
England, and the Duke of Orleans, Marie Louise was the great-grand- 
daughter of our King Charles I. 



234 FROM THE CRUSADES 

There they were detained by contrary winds, which 
pursued them so furiously when they continued their 
voyage that the Queen, who was a bad sailor, suffered 
greatly. Therefore, at the instance of Madame des 
Ursins, Louis gave them permission to continue their 
journey by land. At Figueras, on the Spanish frontier, 
the Camerera Major insisted on the return to Savoy of 
the Queen's Italian suite. Thereby she completely lost 
her little mistress's favour ; and it was weeks before she 
could win it back again. The Duchess of Burgundy, the 
Queen's sister, on her way to France, had submitted 
without a murmur ; but the Queen was furious at thus 
being left with strangers, and she took a dislike to Madame 
des Ursins, which it took all the Camerera Major's tact 
to overcome. 

It was at Figueras, too, that the King met his bride. 
And not unnaturally he found her in a very bad temper, 
which considerably marred the completion of the wedding 
ceremonies. At least, such is the story which St. Simon 
says was told by the Marquis de Louville, who as the 
young King's adviser had accompanied him to Spain. 

That Philip, who had no reason for sharing his wife's 
dislike of her Camerera Major, soon became attached to 
Madame des Ursins, we may learn from an amusing letter 
in which the latter described her new duties. 

" How Madame de Maintenon would laugh," she 
writes, " if she knew all the petty offices I have to perform. 
Tell her, I entreat you, that it is I who have the honour to 
present the King with his dressing-gown when he goes 
to bed, and to give him his slippers when he rises. This I 
might not object to ; but every evening when the King 
enters the Queen's chamber, the Count of Beneventum 
entrusts me with his Majesty's sword . . . and with a 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 235 

lamp which I generally upset over my clothes. Really, 
it is too ridiculous. The King would never get up if I 
did not draw his curtains ; and it would be sacrilege for 
any one else to enter the room when the King and Queen 
are in bed. The other day the lamp went out because I 
had spilt half the oil ; I did not know where the windows 
were, having reached the place the previous night when 
they were closed ; I thought I should have broken my 
nose against the wall, and for a quarter of an hour there 
were the King of vSpain and I knocking up against the 
furniture feeling for the shutters." ^ 

This meticulous ceremonial was a part of that elaborate 
etiquette which rendered the Spanish court the dullest 
place in the world. The wife of a previous French 
Ambassador at Madrid had described the gloom of 
existence there as so crushing that on entering the Queen's 
chamber one seemed to feel it, to see it, and to touch it. 
This gloom Madame des Ursins set herself to dissipate by 
employing all the ingenuity which she had formerly 
displayed in her Roman salon, in organising concerts, 
balls and comedies for the amusement of the royal couple. 
Italian music was then beginning to be the vogue, and it 
was the Princess who first introduced it into Spain. The 
chief amusements of Philip's predecessors seem to have 
been hunting and the watching of those terrible autos- 
da-fe, relics of mediaeval barbarism which the Spanish 
Inquisition still retained. " Charles II.," writes Macaulay, 
" enjoyed with the delight of a true Spaniard two delight- 
ful spectacles, a horse with its bowels gored out, and a 
Jew writhing in the fire." It was Madame des Ursins, 
who, from the time of her arrival in Spain, openly 

* Written from Barcelona to Madame de Noailles on December 12th, 
1 701. See " Lettres In^dites de la Princesse des Ursins " (Geoffroy, 
1859), p. 144. 



236 FROM THE CRUSADES 

condemned these hideous scenes and prevailed upon 
Philip V. to discontinue them. 

The King's confidence the Camerera Major won rapidly 
and completely, but with the Queen it was different. 
And Marie Louise was long in forgetting how the Princess 
had parted her from her countrywomen and left her to 
strangers. One is not surprised, therefore, at the note 
of sadness in the letters which during the first weeks of 
her married life the little Queen wrote to her grand- 
mother, the Dowager Duchess of Savoy, Of " the 
lounging, moping boy " who was her husband, Marie 
Louise writes, " I wish the King would talk more " ; then 
in another letter, " Hunting is the King's favourite amuse- 
ment ; he goes out every day. I sometimes visit convents, 
which are ugly, or go into the garden. To-day, because it 
is Sunday, the King will come with us." 

Madame des Ursins had to exercise all her tact and 
charm before she could gain the affection of the home- 
sick Queen. " The King is a charming Prince whose 
confidence I hope to win. Would to God the Queen 
resembled him," she wrote. But the Queen's affection 
was all the more durable for not being lightly given. 
After a time Marie Louise yielded to the Princess's 
attractions, and, once having forgotten her grievance, 
became her devoted and lifelong friend. 

Spain under Philip V. may be compared to the house- 
hold of Themistocles, for while in the latter it was the wife 
who ruled Themistocles, and the baby who ruled the wife, 
and therefore the baby who ruled the house, so in Spain it 
was the Queen who ruled Philip V., Madame des Ursins 
who ruled the Queen, and therefore Madame des Ursins 
who ruled Spain. According to Louville, Philip V. was a 
prince " who does not reign, and who never will." On the 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 237 

whole, the influence exerted by Madame des Ursins was 
for the good of the country. The Princess was resolved 
to render her royal pupil not only happy, but useful. 
And her design in this respect was soon seconded by 
fortune. For, but a few months after his marriage, King 
Philip left Barcelona to conduct the war in Italy, and the 
Queen was appointed regent during his absence. The 
Princess contrived that the Queen's office should be no 
sinecure. Immediately she carried her off to Sarra- 
gossa. There, always with her Camerera Major at her 
elbow, the Queen presided over the meeting of the 
Estates of Castile, much to the chagrin of the deputies, 
who demurred to the presidency of a woman. Then 
Marie Louise was taken to Madrid, where her indefatigable 
gouvernante insisted on her being present at the meetings 
of the Council or Junta, always well chaperoned by the 
Princess, who had no right whatever to be there, but who 
eagerly seized on this opportunity to penetrate into the 
secret mysteries of Spanish government. During those 
interminable discussions, which lasted usually for six 
hours, while the little Queen was permitted to amuse 
herself with needlework, her lady-in-waiting listened 
eagerly, losing not a word, and carefully reproducing these 
debates in her letters to Louis XIV. 

Those were troubled times for Spain, for in September, 
1702, while the King was still absent, the English fleet 
under the Duke of Ormond entered the harbour of Cadiz 
and landed an army. The landing of English soldiers, 
however, was not altogether a misfortune for the Spanish 
government. The barbarity and greed of the invaders 
so roused the Spanish national spirit that the peasants to 
a man volunteered to fight in defence of their country, 
while nobles and farmers, and even poor folk, gave all 



238 FROM THE CRUSADES 

that they had to repulse the foreigner. Madame des 
Ursins took care that in this crisis the Queen should 
appear as the organiser of defence, and it was to her that 
the parish priests brought the savings of their parishioners. 
One came bearing 120 pistoles. " My flock are ashamed 
to send you so little," he said, " but they beg you to 
believe that in this purse there are a hundred and twenty 
hearts faithful even to the death." The Queen gave her 
own jewels for the payment of soldiers. She herself 
offered to go to the coast. 

By this time all misunderstanding between Madame 
and her royal pupil had vanished, and when, early in 
1703, King Philip returned to Spain he found them in 
perfect accord. He himself, during his absence, had so 
pined for his wife that on his return he fell more passion- 
ately in love with her than ever and more completely 
under her influence. 

But that Spain should be governed by two women was 
the last thing desired by the two Cardinals, the Princess's 
two old friends, Portocarrero and Estrees, who with her 
help had been chiefly instrumental in bringing the 
Bourbons into Spain. It was not in order to make 
Madame des Ursins the arbiter of Spanish destinies that 
they had raised Philip V. to the throne. Cardinal 
d'Estrees was now French Ambassador at Madrid. Porto- 
carrero was the president of the Junta. But they both 
speedily became such formidable rivals that Madame des 
Ursins began to scheme against them. By representa- 
tions to Versailles she obtained Estrees' recall ; Porto- 
carrero she persuaded to accept military office, and thus, 
according to a Spanish law, to effect his own exclusion 
from the Junta. Even then, however, the Princess's 
triumph was by no means secure ; for the Cardinal 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 239 

d'Estrees was succeeded by his nephew, the Abbe 
d'Estrees, who, although he was apparently content to 
be Madame's subordinate, was all the while working 
secretly against her and complaining of her conduct in 
the despatches he sent to France. 

Beginning to suspect this treachery, the Princess 
intercepted one of the Abbe's despatches, wherein she 
found her suspicions fully justified ; for in this document 
the Ambassador descanted at length on the scandalous 
relations which were said to exist between Madame and 
her secretary d'Aubigne, whom she had brought from 
Italy. How much truth there was in these allegations it 
is impossible to tell, neither can we be certain as to what 
happened to this despatch after the Princess had read it ; 
for two conflicting stories are told as to its fate, one by 
the Duke of Berwick, who was at that time commanding 
the French troops in Spain, and the other by that malicious 
raconteur St. Simon. 

St. Simon's story, though probably false, is too 
amusing not to be repeated here. He tells how Madame 
des Ursins, having read with comparative calm a long 
list of accusations against her and her secretary, came to a 
statement that they were married. This was too great an 
insult to the pride of a high-born dame ; the charge that 
d'Aubigne was her lover she might endure, but that she 
had married the son of a Paris attorney was too much. 
In her indignation she took up her pen and wrote in the 
margin : " Married ! certainly not ! " ^ Then, oblivious 
of this teU-tale comment, she sealed up the despatch to 
look as if it had never been opened and forwarded it to 
France. Louis, as was his custom, had the ambassador's 
letter opened and read before his Council, and great was 

^ Pour mariss non. 



240 FROM THE CRUSADES 

the merriment at the reading of the Princess's impetuous 
marginal denial of the Abbe's accusation. Such conduct, 
however, was beyond a joke, and anger soon succeeded 
mirth in the breasts of the King and his counsellors. 

It is hardly necessary to point out the improbability of 
St. Simon's story. Madame des Ursins was no fool to 
commit such a blunder, neither did she ever allow herself 
to be carried away by indignation. For what most likely 
happened we must turn to the Duke of Berwick's Memoirs, 
where he relates, that, having taken a copy of the letter, 
the Princess added to the original her contravention of the 
Ambassador's slander, and with complaints of his perfidy 
forwarded the packet to the King. 

Whatever the details may have been, it was this incident 
which caused Madame des Ursins' fall, and closed the first 
period of her rule in Spain. For some time there had been 
two parties at the court of France, the Princess's friends, 
notably La Marechale de Noailles and the former Spanish 
Ambassador, Comte d'Harcourt, who through Madame de 
Maintenon, besieged the Monarch's ears with praises of 
the Princess ; and her enemies, the chief of whom was 
Cardinal d'Estrees, who were equally untiring in their 
complaints against her. For some time Louis had been 
inclined to agree with the latter ; and the intercepted 
despatch decided him. In May, 1704, Madame des 
Ursins was recalled. " At length, Madame," she wrote 
to la Marechale, " falsehood has conquered truth, and 
although I may say that never did anyone serve the King 
with greater zeal and with greater honesty, yet I am 
treated as a criminal who has betrayed the state while 
my accusers glory." 

The Princess's mission in Spain now appeared an utter 
failure. Her enemies must have thought that the 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 241 

diplomatic career of this elderly woman of over sixty was 
at an end and that nothing remained for her but to with- 
draw quietly to Rome. Madame des Ursins, however, 
was not one to be vanquished by adversity : it was in 
times of mischance that her gifts best displayed them- 
selves ; and she never appeared more brilliant than when 
in a few months she converted this humiliating defeat 
into a glorious victory. 

Her method was first of all to gain time : she was in no 
hurry to obey Louis' command and to leave the Spanish 
capital. When at length she did comply it was only to 
withdraw to Alcala, about twenty miles from Madrid, and 
there she lingered for five weeks before leisurely pursuing 
her journey to Bayonne. Then, instead of making for 
Rome, as her enemies hoped and expected, she went to 
Toulouse and waited. 

Meanwhile in Madrid, since her departure, things had 
been going from bad to worse : the King and Queen were 
disconsolate at the Princess's recall ; the Spaniards, too, 
with whom she was very popular, mourned her absence, 
and none of these circumstances escaped the knowledge 
of Louis XIV., who, at the same time, was constantly 
hearing of the injustice of her treatment from Madame de 
Maintenon and Comte d'Harcourt. Finally, in December, 
1704, the Princess obtained just what she wanted — a 
summons to appear at Versailles ; and now she did not 
delay, but straightway obeyed the King's command. 
Before the end of January, despite the severity of the 
weather, she had travelled north and reached Paris. 

At the French court she carried everything before her. 
During her previous visits she can have known little of the 
King. During her three years' residence in Spain, Louis 
had shown respect for her judgment, and on one 

c.R. R 



242 FROM THE CRUSADES 

occasion^ he even countermanded an order at her 
request. 

But any esteem in which Louis may have previously 
held Madame des Ursins was far beneath that he now 
formed of her. Now she captivated him by her grace and 
her ability. For hours she remained closeted with the 
King and with Madame de Maintenon discussing the 
affairs of Spain. In public the King paid her almost as 
much deference as if she had been a Queen. At one of the 
court balls she was seen carrying in her arms a little 
spaniel, a privilege accorded to no other lady at court, 
and the King actually caressed it during one of the dances. 
Sainte-Beuve paints a charming picture ^ of the delightful 
intercourse enjoyed by these three eminent personages, 
the great King, Madame de Maintenon and Madame des 
Ursins. With the last as a third " even the King's inter- 
course with Madame de Maintenon assumed a new fresh- 
ness. But of the three," Sainte-Beuve ventures to say, 
" it was Madame des Ursins who most powerfully 
dominated the situation, who was the most detached 
from her part and yet who played it the best." 

From the moment of the Princess's arrival at Versailles 
her return to Spain had been a foregone conclusion ; but 
her cause was greatly strengthened by the communica- 
tions which the King was receiving from the Due de 
Gramont, then French Ambassador at Madrid. These 
despatches convinced Louis of Philip's incapacity to 
govern on his o^vn account, of the Queen's devotion to 
Madame des Ursins and of her indignation at the disgrace 
of her Camerera Major, which had struck a serious blow 

1 When he had revoked his instructions to the Spanish Government 
to confiscate the treasure of other nations brought in Spanish galleons 
into Vigo Bay. 

2 " Canseries du Lundi," ed. 1852, V., 331 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 243 

at French influence at Madrid. Thus Louis was driven 
to the conclusion that Madame's return to power was the 
only possible way of restoring amicable relations between 
the two countries ; and apparently when she had been 
but a few weeks at Versailles the King requested her to 
return to Spain. But now she was on her dignity. Now 
it was her turn to hang back. Now she must have some- 
thing better than her former equivocal position at Madrid ; 
now the King must not only extend her powers, he must 
definitely recognise them. And so, at Marly, in an 
interview between that imposing trio, the Great King, 
the Great Marchioness and the Great Princess, a document 
was drawn up and committed to the care of Madame de 
Maintenon. In this document Louis undertook to 
increase the Princess's pension, to communicate in future 
with her direct and not by the intermediary of any 
ambassador, to pay no heed to any calumnies against her, 
to relieve her of the duties of Camercra Major, which 
restricted her independence, to appoint as ambassador 
one of her friends, Amelot, Marquis de Gournay, and 
finally to contrive that she should be consulted as to the 
appointment of vSpanish ministers. 

Such measures practically placed the government of 
Spain in the hands of the Princesse des Ursins, and 
constituted her the acknowledged agent of France at 
Madrid. Her triumph was supreme, she had now surely 
attained the height of her ambition. And yet, if we may 
believe St. Simon — and in this matter there is no reason 
to doubt him — this ambitious woman was not satisfied, she 
aspired to a position still loftier. From January tiU June 
she lingered at the French court. Madame de Maintenon 
could not understand why. She had conquered, she had 
triumphed brilliantly, why did she not set out to enjoy 

R 2 



244 FROM THE CRUSADES 

the fruits of her victory ? " There is something I cannot 
understand about Madame des Ursins," wrote the 
Marchioness, " she can't be induced to depart," St. 
Simon suggests, and with no improbabihty, that the 
feeble health of Madame de Maintenon and the impression 
which the Princess had obviously made upon the King had 
so inflated her ambition that she hoped in the event of 
the Marchioness's demise to become Queen of France, for 
we may be sure that she would never have consented to 
a morganatic marriage with the King. But Madame de 
Maintenon recovered, the Princess's dream vanished ; 
and, on June 29th, 1705, we find her at Amboise, en route 
for Spain. 

Her journey to Madrid was a triumphal progress. 
" Spain receives me," she wrote, " with every conceivable 
honour and demonstration of joy." Wherever she 
passed, dances, games, bull fights, fireworks and the 
discharge of cannon greeted her return. A few miles 
from Madrid, the French Ambassador came out to meet 
her. After he had entertained her at a superb banquet, 
the King and Queen themselves arrived with the whole 
court. Then in pomp and magnificence they escorted her 
into the capital, which, amidst the applause of the people, 
she entered on August 3rd. 

It is during the time of her second rule in Spain, between 
1705 and 1714, that Madame des Ursins appears to the 
greatest advantage. She returned to find the country a 
prey to two evils, civil war and foreign invasion. A strong 
party led by the Admiral of Castile had gone over to the 
Austrian Archduke Charles, who called himself King 
Charles IH., and who was then commanding the army 
sent by the allies to drive the Bourbons from the Spanish 
throne. Meanwhile an English fleet cruising off the coast 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 245 

supported the land forces and constantly threatened the 
harbours of Spain with pillage and desolation. In the face 
of these disasters nothing but the fortitude, the hopeful- 
ness, the resource and the energy of Madame des Ursins 
could have preserved the throne of Spain for the house of 
Bourbon. 

Madame de Maintenon, blissfully ignorant of the 
Princess's dream of succeeding her, was now her intimate 
friend and her most regular correspondent. In her letters 
she marvels at the cheerfulness with which the Princess 
breasted this sea of troubles. " My temperament is my 
best friend,"^ Madame des Ursins wrote. "Among the 
many gifts I have received from God is the gift of cheer- 
fulness, which enables me to despair of nothing. I am 
firmly persuaded that with courage, with diligence and 
with firmness one may overcome the greatest difficulties, 
provided always that those who act desire the public 
good." ^ And throughout those dark days " the public 
good " that Madame des Ursins desired seems to have 
been that of Spain, for whose sake she even dared to differ 
from " the Great King." 

On reaching Madrid in the summer of 1705, she found 
that the allies were rapidly conquering Catalonia and 
besieging its chief city Barcelona, which feU into their 
hands on October gth. The Princess's letters at this 
time to Chamillard, Minister of War and Finance, to 
Madame de Maintenon and to La Marechale de Noailles 
are full of entreaties for help. After the loss of Barcelona 
she wrote : "If only at the beginning of the war France 
had sent us two or three thousand men through RoussiUon, 
we should now be as well as we are badly off. That the 

1 See Geoffroy, " Lettres Inedites de Madame de Maintenon et de 
Madame des Ursins," p. 259. 

2 Ibid., p. 256. 



246 FROM THE CRUSADES 

succour did not come was not my fault, for I wrote to 
your court that it was absolutely necessary." ^ 

In spite of the Princess's admirable efforts the prospects 
of the Bourbons in Spain grew steadily darker until, in 
1706, the approach of the allies drove the King and Queen 
from the capital. " We departed without the barest 
necessities," wrote Madame des Ursins." " At first the 
Queen was without a bed. Fortunately the Chevalier de 
Bragelonne, who commanded our French escort, had a new 
one, which came in very useful. But other things were 
not so easily supplied, for (on the first day) Her Majesty 
had only two eggs for supper, and much the same fare on 
the morrow." ^ 

While the King joined the army, the Queen with 
Madame des Ursins, one lady-in-waiting and a maid was 
left at Burgos ; and thence with her accustomed gaiety 
the Princess sent Madame de Maintenon an amusing 
description of theu^ quarters. " My apartment," she wrote, 
" consists of only one room some twelve or thirteen feet 
square. A large window, which refuses to shut, occupies 
nearly the whole of one wall ; a low door leads into the 
Queen's chamber, and a smaller one into a winding passage 
which I never dare enter, although there are two or three 
lamps burning in it, because it is so badl}^ paved that I 
should break my neck. I can't say that the walls are 
white, because they are very dirty. My travelling bed is 
my only piece of furniture, save for a folding chair and a 
deal table which serves for my toilet, and on which I write 
and eat my dessert from the Queen's table. 

" At all this Her Majesty does nothing but laugh, and I 
join her," 

' Geoffroy, op. cit., p. 207. 
2 Ibid., p. 249. 
^ Ibid., p. 249. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 247 

One is glad to find that such astounding equanimity in 
misfortune did not remain unrewarded ; after a few 
weeks' occupation of the capital the allies retreated, and 
the King and Queen with Madame des Ursins returned 
to Madrid. 

Some months earlier, on December 8th, 1705, the 
Princess had written at great length -^ to Chamillard on 
the conduct of the war, and in this letter she had entreated 
that her old friend, the Duke of Berwick, who in the 
previous year had been recalled to France, should be sent 
back to Spain to command the King's army. Her request 
had been granted. " This great devil of an Englishman," 
as Berwick was called in Spain, realised all Madame des 
Ursins' hopes, and it was Berwick's advance which had 
driven the allies out of Madrid. Now the Princess made 
superb efforts to efficiently equip his army. In the 
province of Burgos she raised 8,000 pistoles, in another 
15,000, and in wealthy Andalusia still more. Money, 
food and clothing poured into Berwick's camp ; and, as 
King Philip admitted in a graceful letter to the Princess, 
it was owing to her energy and resource that he was now 
able to feed, to clothe and to pay his soldiers. 

Madame des Ursins' noble exertions received their 
recompense when, at Almanza,^ on April 25th, 1707, 
Marshal Berwick inflicted a crushing defeat on the allies. 

This victory for a time completely restored the fortunes 
of King Philip V. ; and by the end of the year the only 
part of Spain held by the allies was the northern province 
of Catalonia. The news of the battle was received with 



^ The letter occupies eight pages (213 — 221) of Geoffrey's book. 

2 The only battle recorded in which an English general at the head 
of a French army defeated an English army commanded by a French- 
man. The Englishman was, of course, Berwick, the Frenchman, Henri 
de Ruvigny, Lord Galway. 



248 FROM THE CRUSADES 

great rejoicing both in France and at Madrid. Madame 
des Ursins herself had the joy of announcing it to the 
King and Queen. Madame de Maintenon, in one of her 
livehest letters, related how the news reached the French 
court, ^ " You know, Marly," she writes, " and my apart- 
ments there ; the King was alone in my little room ; and 
I in my boudoir, which serves as a passage, was sitting 
down to table, when an officer of the guards announced at 
the King's door, M. de Chamillard. The King replied, 
' What, is it he ? ' for naturally he was not expected. I, 
very much astonished, threw down my napkin, as M. de 
Chamillard, crying ' It is good news ! ' went straight in to 
the King . . . and, as you may imagine, Madame, I went 
in also. Then I heard of the defeat of the enemy's army 
and returned to my supper in high spirits." 

The year 1707 was one of rejoicing at the court of 
Spain, for on August 25th a prince was bom to the King 
and Queen. We are amused to find Madame des Ursins 
taking credit to herself for this auspicious event. The 
Spaniards, she writes, would have blamed her had their 
Queen not born an heir. For months the Princess had 
been on the tip-toe of eager expectation. Long letters 
on the subject had passed between the two childless old 
ladies who then controlled the courts of Versailles and 
Madrid, Madame des Ursins asking for advice as to the 
selection of nurses for the royal infant, Madame de 
Maintenon counselling Madame des Ursins to study a 
graceful attitude for rocking the cradle. 

Meanwhile, although fortune was favouring the 
Bourbons in Spain, in Italy and the north the military 
gifts of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough were 

1 " Lettres In^dites de Madame de Maintenon et de la Princesse 
des Ursins," I., 120. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 249 

driving Louis XIV. to despair. He was beginning to 
feel the task of maintaining his grandson on the throne of 
Spain to be an intolerable burden. The terrible disasters 
of 1709, the defeat of Malplaquet, and a severe winter 
followed by plague and famine, confirmed Louis in this 
idea, in which he was supported by Madame de Maintenon, 
who desired peace at any price. On this point she had 
long and bitter discussions with Madame des Ursins, who 
would never for a moment entertain the idea of abandon- 
ing Spain to the Austrians, not even when in September, 
1710, the court was again driven from Madrid. In that 
year, as in 1707, the allies were unable to hold the capital 
for long, and by December the King and Queen were back 
again in their capital. Meanwhile the skilful operations of 
Vend6me caused the enemy to retreat northwards, until 
once again they were confined within the mountainous 
strongholds of Catalonia. 

This advantage gained by the French in Spain doubtless 
influenced those negotiations for peace which were now 
being carried on by the warring Powers. Events in the 
Peninsula, added to the death of the Emperor Joseph, 
which, leaving the Archduke Charles the most likely 
successor to the Imperial throne, rendered his rule in 
Spain an even greater threat than that of Philip V. 
to the balance of power in Europe, completely altered 
Louis XIV.'s position. The King now looked for con- 
cessions in return for any sacrifices he might make. 
From this time the abandonment of Spain to the Austrian 
house became out of the question, and Madame des 
Ursins' mind was set at rest. 

But no sooner was she relieved from anxiety on behalf 
of her adopted land and her beloved sovereign than her 
inveterate ambition returned, and she began to scheme 



250 FROM THE CRUSADES 

on her own account. As a part of the settlement which 
the European Powers were then negotiating, King PhiHp 
proposed that on Madame des Ursins and her heirs in full 
sovereignty should be settled the Duchy of Limburg in 
the Low Countries. That the King of Spain should wish 
to bestow on his faithful friend and wise counsellor some 
acknowledgment of the valuable services she had rendered 
to him and to his kingdom was only just ; but that when 
this proposal met with opposition Madame des Ursins 
should have so far insisted on her claims as to drag out 
the negotiations and to postpone the peace, of which 
Europe, and Spain specially, stood so greatly in need, 
seems strangely discordant with the patriotism she had 
shown earlier in the war ; and her old friend the minister, 
Torcy, did not hesitate to denounce her for this action. 
While England and Holland were not indisposed to accede 
to the Princess's demand and to insert the grant of 
sovereignty in the Peace of Utrecht, the Emperor would 
not hear of the dismemberment of the Netherlands. And 
finally, Louis XIV. had to intervene, and to insist on his 
grandson's commuting the sovereignty of Limburg into 
a money payment in order that a European settlement 
might be arrived at. 

Even then, after she had been omitted from the Treaty, 
Madame des Ursins, with her invincible hopefulness, 
refused to abandon the idea of one day ruling in her own 
right. Before the Peace of Utrecht she had persuaded 
King Philip to issue a decree calling upon the grandees 
to address her as " your highness." Her overweening 
ambition at this time made her the laughing-stock of 
Europe and appealed to the humour of Lord Bolingbroke, 
who, during the negotiations, wrote her a letter/ in which 

1 See his " Letters and Correspondence " ed. Parke, 1798. III., 345- 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 251 

he " your highnessed " her at every line, thinking, as he 
explained to a friend, that in the absence of means for the 
gratification of her avarice it might be prudent for England 
to flatter her vanity. 

Meanwhile the Princess insisted on assuming sovereign 
state ; on her journeys she was escorted by a detachment 
of the King's guard. She beheved that one day Limburg 
would be hers, and when that day should come, she had 
resolved to exchange it for a part of Touraine. vSo 
absurdly sanguine had she become in her old age that she 
secretly despatched her secretary d'Aubigne to purchase 
property near Amboise, and there to construct a vast 
edifice which was nothing more or less than a royal 
palace.^ 

But while she was building these airy castles in Spain, 
and a more substantial one on the Loire, a turn in the 
wheel of fortune caused the former to vanish like a 
morning mist, while the latter remained only to be known 
as the Princess's folly. For on February 14th, 1714, the 
thread, from which the Princess's vast influence depended, 
snapped, and Marie Louise, Queen of Spain, died. 

For a time this reverse seems only to have inflated the 
Princess's already overweening ambition, and at first she, 
an old lady of over seventy, seems to have conceived the 
extraordinary design of marrying the King of Spain, who 
was forty years her junior. Louis XIV. and Madame de 
Maintenon, knowing her strength of will and the King's 
weakness, greatly feared that she would achieve her 
object. And it appears to have been their opposition 
which brought the Princess to her senses. Then, as if in 
order to prove to them that she had never intended to do 
anything so absurd, she hurriedly and without waiting to 
1 The chateau of Chanteloup. 



252 FROM THE CRUSADES 

hear from Versailles, arranged to marry Philip to a 
Princess of Parma, Elizabeth Farnese. As far as she 
herself was concerned, Madame des Ursins could not 
possibly have made a more unfortunate choice. In 
Elizabeth she met her match. This princess was born 
for sovereignty, Frederick the Great said of her, that she 
possessed all the pride of a Spartan, the obstinacy of an 
Englishwoman, the vivacity of a Frenchwoman, and the 
craft of an Italian. When she came into Spain, one thing 
she had determined — that she would not be ruled by the 
old lady who had so long dominated her predecessor. 

The marriage was to take place in December at Guada- 
laxara, where on the 22nd King Philip arrived, accompanied 
by Madame des Ursins. There the Princess left the King 
to await his bride, while she pushed on to meet Elizabeth 
at a neighbouring village where she was to spend the 
night. In elaborate court dress, Madame des Ursins was 
ushered into the Queen's presence, but only to receive an 
icy reception. In the course of conversation the royal 
bride took exception to her visitor's dress and to her 
manners. The Princess, who considered that both were 
perfectly correct, attempted to justify herself. Wliere- 
upon the Queen flew into a temper and commanded " this 
mad woman," as she called her, to leave her presence. 
Wlien Madame des Ursins hesitated, Elizabeth, seizing 
her by the shoulders, pushed her out of the room, at the 
same time calling for the lieutenant of the guards and the 
equerry. The first she commanded to arrest Madame des 
Ursins, the second to prepare a six-horsed carriage, and 
in it to drive the Princess post haste to the frontier. 
When the lieutenant represented that the power of 
arresting a personage of such high rank as the Princess 
belonged to the King alone, the Queen retorted, what was 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 253 

perfectly true, that she had in her possession a royal order 
commanding the lieutenant to obey her in everything. 

Madame des Ursins, therefore, was helpless. Without 
allowing her time to pack up anything or to take any food 
with her, or even to change her court dress, the Queen had 
her and her maid unceremoniously bundled into a coach 
and driven out of Spain. It was seven o'clock on 
Christmas eve when she started. The night was so 
bitterly cold that before morning the coachman's hand 
was frozen off. It is astonishing that at her age the 
Princess should have been able to survive such a terrible 
ordeal. At Bayonne she halted in her enforced flight, and 
wrote to Louis XIV. of the gross indignity to which she 
had been subjected. To PhiHp V. she knew but too well 
it would be useless to appeal, for she realised that as he 
had been completely dominated by his first wife, so he 
would be by the second. To her great consolation the 
Princess received a letter written with the Great King's 
own hand, condoling with her in her misfortune, and 
inviting her to come to Paris. That long journey from 
Bayonne to Paris, which once before she had taken in 
mid-winter, she now made for the second and last 
time. Arriving in Paris in the middle of February, 1715, 
she took up her abode with her brother, the Duke of Noir- 
moustiers, and waited for a summons to the royal presence. 

But that summons was long delayed. At the French 
court powerful influences were working against her. 
Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon, since the rumour 
of her design to marry Philip V., were somewhat afraid 
of her ambition. Moreover, even Louis' influence was 
waning ; the Great King was ill, his long reign was draw- 
ing to a close, the star of the future Regent, the Duke of 
Orleans, was in the ascendant, and the Duke and his 



254 FROM THE CRUSADES 

mother, the erratic Princess Palatine, were Madame des 
Ursins' bitter enemies. So the Princess waited and 
waited. WTien at length the summons to Versailles 
reached her and she went to lay her grievances before the 
King, her audience was a terrible disappointment. It 
lasted but half an hour, followed by an hour with Madame 
de Maintenon and a dinner with Torcy, the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs. Not even invited to stay the night, the 
Princess returned to Paris the same day, depressed to 
think how different was this cold reception from that 
brilliant triumph which had greeted her at Versailles at 
the time of her first fall from power. 

The Princess was advised to retire to Italy. But before 
leaving Paris, she requested and obtained one partinginter- 
view with the King. Then Louis and Madame de Maintenon 
received her at Marly as coldly and as briefly as before ; 
and there she took her last leave of the King and of his wife. 

By slow stages, hoping still for some turn of fortune 
in her favour, and still uncertain as to the place of her 
retirement, Madame des Ursins made her way south. At 
Lyons the news of the King's death and of the Regency of 
the Duke of Orleans reached her. From that moment 
any desire she might have had to remain in France was 
extinguished. To Madame de Maintenon she wrote con- 
gratulating her on finding a retreat at St. Cyr ; "as for 
me," she added, " I know not where to go and die." 
Rome of all places would most naturally attract her ; but 
she feared the reception she might meet with from the 
Pope, and perhaps she hesitated to return in disgrace to a 
city where she had once been so powerful and so popular. 
So, for a while, she resided at Genoa, until, through his 
ambassador, Philip V., who, despite his second wife's 
domination, still nourished a certain kindness for his old 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 255 

friend, informed her that the Pope would receive her 
kindly. In 1718, therefore, after seventeen years' absence, 
Madame des Ursins returned to Rome. It was as King 
Philip had promised, the Pope, and not only the Pope, 
but his court and his cardinals received her with all 
possible respect and honour. One of those cardinals was 
her own brother, raised some years earlier to that dignity 
by his sister's influence, and now, by the same means, 
Ambassador of France at the papal court. 

The Palazzo Pasquino had some time before passed out 
of Madame des Ursins' possession. But the house she now 
occupied, although probably less pretentious, was comfort- 
able and commodious enough for the French Ambassador, 
the Abbe de Tencin, to wish to live in it after her death. •■• 

At Rome the Princess met another exile, James, 
Chevalier de St. Georges, the Old Pretender, whom a 
clause in the Treaty of Utrecht had banished from French 
dominions. She had known the Prince as a boy, and, as 
we have seen, been an intimate friend of his mother. 
The year after Madame des Ursins' arrival James married 
Clementine, daughter of the famous Jean Sobieski. 
With the Stuart bride the Princess became intimately 
associated, and ^in ,the court of the exiled Stuarts she 
played in miniature the same part which in earlier years 
she had acted on a grander and a more extensive stage. 

Retaining almost to the end her powers of body and of 
mind, she died in September, 1722, after three days' 
illness, during which she was visited by the Princess 
Sobieski. While leaving all her possessions outside Italy 
to her brother, the Duke of Noirmoustiers, and her Orsini 
property to her nephew, the Duke of Lanti, she bequeathed 
a gold snuff-box set with diamonds to the Pretender, and 
1 " Madame des Ursins etla Succession d'Espagne," VI., 351. 



256 FROM THE CRUSADES 

a gilded toilet-set that had once belonged to the Queen of 
Spain to the Princess Sobieski. 

Sainte-Beuve at the end of his second causerie on the 
Princess admits that he had intended to represent Madame 
des Ursins as an example of the undesirable female 
politician. But Sainte-Beuve, like Balaam, having gone 
forth to curse, remained to bless. Captivated by her 
charms, even through the pallid medium of books, he was 
compelled to recognise her usefulness. And indeed with 
that charm which captivated Sainte-Beuve, and without 
which no woman politician can achieve success, Madame 
des Ursins was bountifully endowed. It was a charm of 
manner and also of appearance as the portrait illustrating 
this chapter must testify. 

The Princess's brother, the Cardinal de La Tremoille, 
had two years earlier preceded her to the grave. No one 
could have been less ecclesiastically minded than this 
little hunchback Cardinal, who as a wit and a libertine 
was the complete type of an eighteenth century abbe. 
As we have seen, he owed much to his sister, with whom 
nevertheless he was constantly quarrelling. His house- 
hold was the most disorderly in Rome, and although the 
beneficiary of many high ecclesiastical offices and vast 
church lands, he died a bankrupt. 

A very different person was Madame des Ursins' elder 
brother, the Duke of Noirmoustiers. Notwithstanding 
his blindness, he was a man of wide interests and high 
culture, esteemed by a large circle of friends, who on 
matters of art or of affairs bowed to his opinion as to that 
of an oracle. The Duke died some years after his famous 
sister, at the age of eighty. His second wife lived on 
until 1733. And with her death this branch of the La 
Tremoille family became extinct. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 257 



CHAPTER X 

THE PRINCESSE DE TALMOND, PRINCE CHARLIE'S EGERIA, 
AND OTHER LA TR^MOILLES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

We have now reached the period of La Tremoille 
dedine. While with Duke Henry and Duchess Marie the 
house attained the apogee of its grandeur, with the Fronde 
and the dissipation of the family fortune by the Prince 
de Tarente there set in a steady diminution of wealth and 
of authority, which ended in the debacle of the Revolution. 
Throughout the eighteenth century, as v/e have seen,-^ the 
Dukes, unable to keep up the double state of an establish- 
ment in the west and a hotel at Paris, were content to 
abandon their country seats for the capital. The Prince 
de Tarente's son, Duke Charles Belgique, lived almost 
entirely at Paris, in a house on the Quai Malaquais, where 
he died in 1709. 

Nothwithstanding a goodlier array of titles than had 
been borne by any of his ancestors,^ Duke Charles, at once 
duke, prince, count, baron, viscount, marquis, peer of 
France and first gentleman of the bedchamber, was much 
less powerful than the mere Seigneurs of La Tremoille in 
the twelfth century. For we find him compelled through 
poverty to relinquish the grand state of a great feudal 

1 Preface, p. VII. 

2 Due de La Tremoille, de Thouars and de Loudun, Prince de Tarente 
and de Talmond, Comte de Laval, de Montfort, de Guines, de Jonvelle 
and de Taillebourg, Baron de Vitre, de Mauleon, de Burie and de Didonne, 
Vicomte de Rennes, de Bais and de Marsille, Marquis d'Espinay. 

C.R. S 



258 FROM THE CRUSADES 

suzerain, living in the midst of numerous vassals, who 
would expect to be entertained in princely fashion after 
the manner of the La Tremoilles of yore. 

For this woeful deplenishment of the family exchequer, 
the Prince de Tarente must not be held solely responsible. 
It had been largely drawn upon by the Prince's parents 
for the erection on the bank of the Thouet of their mag- 
nificent chateau, which, converted into a state prison, 
stands to-day as the expression of that pride which pro- 
verbially heralds a fall. But there was yet another event 
which helped to empty the La Tremoille purse, and with 
that neither the Duke, the Duchess nor the Prince had 
anything to do. Louis XVL's Revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes, by driving from France the Protestant tanners 
of Thenars, the most industrious and the most prosperous 
of its inhabitants, while inflicting an irretrievable disaster 
on the town and the province, considerably curtailed 
the La Tremoille income. 

Of the four Dukes of Thenars and La Tremoille from 
the Prince de Tarente down to the Revolution there is 
little to tell. Neither of them possessed any very striking 
personality. Three, Charles Belgique (1655 — 1709), 
Charles Louis Bretagne^ (1685 — 1719), and Jean Bretagne 
(1737 — 1792), were soldiers. But Charles Belgique was 
compelled by ill-health to retire early from the army. 
Charles Louis Bretagne and Jean Bretagne were field 
marshals, in which capacity the former commanded at 
Oudenarde and Malplaquet. Both Charles Belgique and 
Charles Louis were first Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to 
Louis XIV., an ofhce which the latter continued to hold 
under Louis XIV. 's successor. Charles Armand Rene 

1 The name of Bretagne was given to him because the Breton Estates, 
of which his father was President, stood as his godfather. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 259 

(1708 — 1741) made a new departure in the history of his 
line. Hitherto the La Tremoilles, had distinguished them- 
selves rather in the sphere of action than in that of 
thought. But Armand Rene must have added to the 
ability of a man of action — he was a brilliant soldier — 
some intellectual qualifications, for we find that on March 
6th, 1738, he was received as a member of the French 
Academy, a new honour for a La Tremoille, but one which 
was to be renewed in the following century ; then the 
late Duke, by his careful arrangement and publication 
of the family records, won a seat among the Immortals. 

Throughout the century, despite their diminished 
wealth, the La Tremoilles pursued their ancient policy of 
mating only in the noblest houses of the day. Charles 
Belgique married Madeleine de Crequy,^ daughter of 
Charles de Crequy, Prince de Poix ; Charles Louis took 
to wife Marie Madeleine, only daughter of Rene Armand 
Motier de La Fayette ; Charles Armand Rene followed 
the example of his ancestor Duke Henry and married 
into the house of Bouillon, his wife Marie Hortense 
was the daughter of the Duke Emmanuel Theodore de 
La Tour d'Auvergne. Jean Bretagne was twice married : 
first in 175 1 to Marie Genevieve de Durfort, who died 
without children in 1762 ; and afterwards to Marie 
Maximilienne de Salm-Kerbourg, daughter of a German 
Prince and Princess, who died in 1790, two years before 
her husband, leaving four sons. 

Considering the noble zeal shown by these sons, during 
the Revolution period, in risking and forfeiting their lives 
in defence of the French monarchy, had not the Princess 
de Salm proved more prolific than the wives of earlier 
eighteenth century La Tremoilles, the line would have 

1 She died two years before her husband, 17 17. 

S 2 



26o FROM THE|CRUSADES 

become extinct, for both Charles Louis Bretagne and his 
successor Charles Armand Rene had only one son. 

It is, however, to the younger La Tremoille branch, to 
the wife of a Prince de Talmond, that in this century we 
must look for that vein of romantic adventure which 
never fails to enliven the history of this house. 

The Prince de Tarente's second son,-^ Frederic Guillaume, 
bore the title of Prince de Talmond and bequeathed it to 
his son, Anne Charles Frederic. It is the story of this 
Prince's consort that is the subject of this chapter. 

Now, but not for the first time, we shall find the 
destinies of La Tremoilles touching those of the house 
of Stuart. We have already seen Charlotte de La 
TremoiUe entertaining her cousin. Prince Rupert, at 
Lathom House, the Prince de Tarente receiving the 
Garter from the exiled Charles II., the Princesse des Ursins 
staying with Mary of Modena at St. Germain, and later, 
in the days of her adversity, dominating the court of the 
elder Pretender at Rome. Now La Tremoilles and Stuarts 
were to be associated in a romantic connection which to 
neither house was to bring honour or prosperity. 

' Henry Charles, Prince de Tarente. 



Charles Belgique Hollande, Frederic Guillaume, Prince de Talmond, 
Due de La Tremoille. 1668 — 1739, 

took orders and became Abb6 of 
Charroux and Canon of Strasbourg, 
i68g ; left Church for army and became 
Lieutenant-Gen eral in 1710; married 
Antoinette de Bouillon in 1 707, by whom 
he had several children. The eldest = 

I 
Anne Charles Frederic, Prince de 
Talmond, Brigadier of Cavalry, 1743 ; 
created Duke of Chatellerault, 1749 ; 
died 1759. Married, 1730, Marie Louise 
Jablonowski, first cousin of King 
Stanislas of Poland. 

I 
Louis Stanislas, Duke of Chatellerault; 




MADELINE DE LA FAYETTE, DUCHESE DE LA TREMOILLE AND.^^iaZ 

HER SON, ARMAND RENE, DUC DE LA TREMOILLE 

From a picture, attributed to Jervas, belonging to Mr. Aldenburg Bentinck, 
photographed by Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 261 

The Prince de Tarente's grandson, besides being a 
brilliant general, was a gallant courtier, in high favour 
with King Louis XV. And it was at Louis' court at 
Chambord, in 1730, that for his sins the Prince de Talmond 
met and married one of the most attractive and capricious 
women of her time, a Polish Princess, Marie Jablonowski, 
first cousin to Stanislas, the exiled King of Poland, with 
whose daughter, Queen Marie Leczsinki, she had come 
to France. But more important than either of those 
relationships and fraught with more serious consequences 
was Princess Marie's cousinship to Prince Charles 
Edward Stuart, through his mother. Princess vSobieski. 

vSome years after her marriage we find the Princesse de 
Talmond in Paris, in the fashionable philosophical circles 
of that day, the friend of Montesquieu, of Voltaire and of 
that most brilliant of eighteenth century, Salonnieres 
Madame du Deffand. 

In this same circle, possibly introduced into it by his 
beautiful cousin, moved Prince Charles Edward during 
the years of defeat and despair which followed Culloden. 
Of the Princess, Voltaire wrote that she was endowed with 

" Le gout qu'on ne trouve qu'en France 
Et I'esprit de tons les pays." ^ 

Madame du Deffand, who never indulged in undiluted 
praise, draws a less flattering portrait of her. 

" Madame de Talmond," she writes, " has beauty and 
wit and vivacity ; that turn for pleasantry which is our 
national inheritance seems natural to her. . . . But her 
wit deals only with pleasant frivolities ; her ideas are the 
children of her memory rather than of her imagination. 
French in everything else, she is original in her vanity. 

1 Quoted by Andrew Lang, " Life of Prince Charles Edward Stuart," 
(1903). p. 343- 



262 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Ours is more sociable, inspires the desire to please, and 
suggests the means. Hers is truly Sarmatian, artless and 
indolent ; she cannot bring herself to flatter those whose 
admiration she covets, . . , She thinks herself perfect, says 
so, and expects to be believed. At this price alone does 
she yield a semblance of friendship ; semblance, I say, 
for her affections are concentrated on herself. She is as 
jealous as she is vain, and so capricious as to make her at 
once the most unhappy and the most absurd of women. 
She never knows what she wants, what she fears, whom she 
loves, or whom she hates. There is nothing natural in her 
expression ; with her chm in the air she poses eternally 
as tender or disdainful, absent or haughty ; all is affecta- 
tion. . . . She is feared and hated by all M^ho live in her 
society. Yet she has truth, courage and honesty, and is 
such a mixture of good and evil that no steadfast opinion 
about her can be entertained. She pleases, she provokes ; 
we love, hate, seek, and avoid her. It is as if she com- 
municated to others the eccentricity of her own caprice." 

This description, while obviously not charitable, is 
stamped with that keen discernment of character for 
which the writer was famous ; indeed, it is in perfect 
accord with what we know of Madame de Talmond's 
behaviour towards Prince Charles. To the story of their 
relations as told by Argenson in his " Memoirs," the late 
Mr. Andrew Lang, in his two volumes entitled " Pickle 
the Spy " and the life of " Prince Charles Edward," has 
added details derived chiefly from the Stuart papers at 
Windsor and from some Additional MSS. in the British 
Museum. In the course of unravelling the mysterious 
skein of the Prince's career during the years which 
followed CuUoden, Mr. Lang has revealed the important 
part played by Madame de Talmond in this chapter of her 
royal cousin's life. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 263 

As the defeated hero of the great '45, the bonnie Prince 
naturally appealed to feminine imagination. " In Paris, 
the year after CuUoden," writes Argenson, " women were 
literally pulling caps for Charles." In a manuscript play 
by the minister ^ he represents " Madame de Talmond and 
another noble lady fighting like fish-fags over the object 
of their admiration." But it was Madame de Talmond 
who, despite some ten years' seniority to the Prince, 
conquered in the end, and ruled her victim with fire and 
fury. " She was certainly his Egeria, probably his 
mistress," writes Mr. Lang. She, with other distinguished 
friends, was invited by Charles to a gorgeous supper at 
Paris in 1748, for which the Prince ordered a new service 
of plate worth 100,000 francs, and insisted on the gold- 
smith's preferring his order to the King's. In the opinion 
of the Old Pretender, Madame de Talmond, during these 
desperate years, was encouraging his son in every kind 
of foUy. It was she who was held responsible for his 
indifference to religion, for she was accused with having 
infected him with her free-thinking principles. And 
indeed it seems probable that when in this same year 
Louis XV., by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, promised to 
expel Charles from his dominions, the Princess encouraged 
him to defy the French monarch and refuse to go. 

At that time Charles was daily visiting Madame de 
Talmond in her h6tel. Her husband not unnaturally 
objected and complained to the King that every day the 
Prince entered his gardens uninvited, and walked beneath 
his windows. Acting on the King's advice apparently, 
the Prince de Talmond instructed his footmen to refuse 
Charles admission. Therefore, one day when the Prince 

1 Entitled " La Prison du Prince Charles Edouard Stuart," Published 
later by the Due de Broglie, in " La Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique." 
No. 4, Paris, 1891. 



264 FROM THE CRUSADES 

arrived as usual at two o'clock in the afternoon, he was 
told that no one was at home. Fl3dng into a fury, Charles 
declared it to be a lie. But it was perfectly true, for 
Madame de Talmond had gone to the Queen. She 
explained to her lover when they met that after all she 
must obey her husband, and that if even the King wished 
to enter her house against her husband's will, he would 
be refused admission. Such defiance, however, only pro- 
voked Charles further. At eleven o'clock that night he re- 
turned, and, finding all doors closed against him, declared 
that he would force an entrance. It was only with the 
greatest difficulty that his companion, Bulkeley, a 
brother-in-law of Marshal Berwick, and also a friend of 
Montesquieu, dissuaded him from so violent and un- 
dignified an enterprise. 

This incident was but the first in that series of quarrels 
between the Prince and Madame de Talmond which 
continued throughout their liaison. 

A few days later, as he was coming out of the opera, 
Charles was arrested and confined in the chateau of 
Vincennes. At the same time one of the Prince's servants 
was arrested also. Thereupon his mistress ^vrote curtly 
to Maurepas : " Sir, the King's laurels are in full flower, 
and the imprisonment of my lacquey cannot add to their 
glory, I pra}^ you release him." Maurepas' reply to this 
letter was the banishment of the Princess herself ; she 
was bidden retire to Lorraine, where she joined her 
exiled cousin Stanislas. Charles, after a few days' im- 
prisonment in the fortress of Vincennes, was conducted 
out of Paris, where he never appeared openly again. 
Probably he went for a short time to Avignon. But for 
the next few months his movements mystified all the 
ministers of Europe, who hazarded many a wild guess 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 265 

as to his whereabouts. Mr. Lang, with the help of the 
Stuart papers at Windsor, has traced him to Lorraine, 
where on April 3rd, 1719, he was residing at Luneville, in 
the house of Stanislas' physician, and drawing up a plan 
for his return to Paris. -^ 

Apparently he was successful, for in June Mr. Lang 
finds him in the French capital. Grimm, the Paris 
correspondent of the Empress Catherine the Great, states 
that in this city he was in hiding for the next three years. 
More probabty he merely visited it, in disguise, at frequent 
intervals. 

It is fairly certain that during these visits his place of 
concealment was the famous convent of St. Joseph, in the 
Rue St. Dominique in the Faubourg St. Germain. Madame 
de Montespan, Louis XIV. 's famous mistress, had founded 
this convent when her reign at court was over. Attached 
to it were rooms in which ladies of rank might make a 
retreat or permanently occupy chambers. Such a suite of 
rooms belonged to Madame de Talmond. In another 
Madame du Deffand had established her famous salon, 
receiving, in her yellow moire drawing-room, decorated 
with flame-coloured rosettes, the greatest wits of the age. 
Into this yellow salon, in the early hours of the evening, 
Madame du Deffand's romantic 3^oung companion, Mdlle. 
de Lespinasse, used to descend to meet a few of the 
choicest spirits, and furtively skim the cream of the con- 
versation before her aged employer appeared. Here, too, 
lived a lady of Jacobite S3^mpathies, Madame de Vasse. 
She, also, had a gifted young companion, Mdlle. Ferrand, 
of whom we shall hear more hereafter. 

In Madame de Talmond's apartment was a small 
dressing-room which could be approached by a secret 

1 " Pickle the Spy," p. 71. 



266 FROM THE CRUSADES 

staircase. And here, during his fugitive visits to Paris, 
Charles was concealed. In this retreat, and in Madame 
du Deffand's rooms, he may have conferred with his 
supporters. Bulkeley, we know, attended that lady's 
famous Monday evenings, and Montesquieu, another 
habitue, had pronounced Jacobite sympathies. Charles 
seldom ventured out of doors, although once, in 1751, 
he was recognised at a masked ball at the opera 
house. 

This ^^•as no life for an adventurous high-spirited 
Prince. The society of philosophers and fair females 
might be all very well as a recreation, but when Charles 
saw no one else day or night he grew morbid and cantan- 
kerous, while the weakness which was ultimately to prove 
his ruin began to grow upon him. 

Madame de Talmond, for her part, had been ready to 
do anything for her bonnie Prince, when, glorified by the 
romance of a desperate attempt valiantly hazarded and 
bravely lost, he had appeared in Paris. But when the 
months dragged on, and her heroic Prince Charming sank 
into a mere hunted fugitive, she began to grow tired of 
him. Of this there is evidence in many of the Windsor 
notes : scribblings of violent wrath or of passionate 
affection hastily penned in reply to the remonstrances of 
Madame de Talmond, who is addressed as L. P. D. T., or 
as Madame de Bauregor (Beauregard). In one of these, 
with mock ceremony, Charles writes : — 

" We undertake in every point to carry out the will and 
the arrangements of our faithful friend and ally, L. P. D. T. ; 
and to withdraw at such hours as may please the said P., 
either of the day or night, from her estates, in testimony 
whereof we sign. — C." ^ 

^ Nous nous prometons de suivre en tout les volontes et les arrange- 
mens de notre lidele amie et alliee, L. P. D. T. ; nous retirer aux heures 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 267 

In another he complains of his lady's persistence in 
maintaining even in the most palpable matters that black 
is white, and white black, and refusing to acknowledge 
herself in the wrong even when she felt that she was. 
Such charges surely, from the beginning of time, in every 
lover's quarrel have been levelled by the man against the 
woman. And whether they arise from innate feminine 
perversity or from masculine inability to adopt the 
feminine point of view, who would venture to say ? 

In this same letter, written on March 28th, 1750, 
Charles continues in an aggrieved tone. 

" If you don't wish to help me, then it is useless for me 
to tell you of my concerns ; if you do wish to protect me, 
then don't make my life unhappier than it already is. 
If you want to part from me, then tell me so in good 
French or Latin." ^ 

Notwithstanding their disputes, Madame de Talmond 
continued to influence the Prince. And it was probably 
by her advice that in the autumn of 1750 Charles indulged 
in the forlorn hope of a secret expedition to England. 
Before he left Paris, he committed to the Princess's care 
letters to be given to Louis XV. in the event of Charles's 
death, and a document marked, " Credentials given ye 
1st September, 1750, to ye P. T." (Princesse de Talmond), 
asking the King to regard " Madame La P. de T. ma chere 

qu'il lui conviendra k la ditte P., soit du jour, soit de nuit, soit de ses 
etats, en joy de quoi nous signons, C." Quoted by A. Lang, " Pickle 
the Spy," pp. 92—93- 

1 " March 28, 1750. A Madame Bauregor, — Si vous voules me 
servire, il ne faut pas me soutenire toujours que Blan (blanc) est noir, 
dans les choses les plus palpable : et jamais Avouer que vous aves tort 
meme quant vous le santes. Si vous ne voules pas me servire, il est 
inutile que je vous parle de ce qui me regarde : si vous voules me 
protege, il ne faut pas me rendre La Vie plus malheureuse qu'il n'est. 
Si vous voules m'abandoner il faut me le dire en bon Francois ou 
Latin." Quoted by A. Lang {ibid., p. 95). 



268 FROM THE CRUSADES 

cousine," as the Prince's representative. On the eve of 
starting Charles commanded from Le Brun a miniature of 
himself with all the Orders, which Mr. Lang suggests may 
have been a parting gift to Madame de Talmond. 

Apparently no plans had been made for an organised 
rising in the Prince's support. Charles probably went 
over partly to see how matters stood, and partly to escape 
from the boredom of a tedious solitude in hiding, broken 
only by daily quarrels and reconciliations with Madame de 
Talmond. 

In London, however, Charles ventured to stay but a 
few weeks, just time enough to become a member of the 
Church of England, to hold a secret conference with his 
supporters in Pall Mall, to inspect the defences of the 
Tower, to alarm a Jacobite lady by appearing unex- 
pectedly at her party, and to drink tea with a Jacobite 
gentleman, whose servant detected a resemblance between 
his master's visitor and the busts of the Prince which were 
being sold in Red Lyon Square. Nevertheless, despite 
the lady's alarm and the servant's discernment, the 
English Government, searching every town in Europe for 
the Young Pretender, never dreamt of his being at their 
very doors. By the end of September he was back again 
in Paris. 

Their short separation had rendered the lovers more 
congenial to one another ; and among the Stuart papers 
of this period are numerous tiny notes, easily concealed, 
and doubtless, says Mr. Lang, " passed to the lady 
furtively," in which Charles protests his passionate 
adoration. 

But this billing and cooing did not last long. The 
Prince soon began to suspect Madame de Talmond of 
betraying him politically, while the Princess was ever 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 269 

haunted by suspicion of another kind of treachery. 
Their quarrels grew more and more violent, frequently 
culminating in blows, until the other inmates of St. 
Joseph could endure such scenes no longer, and Madame 
de Vasse insisted on the pair leaving the convent. On 
the eve of starting for Lorraine, Madame de Talmond 
wrote to Charles doubtfully : "If you are to me that 
which you ought to be, then I embrace you tenderly." 

Her suspicions increased when she found that Charles 
was corresponding with another fair resident at St, Joseph, 
with the highly gifted and philosophical Mdlle. Ferrand.^ 
To this learned lady the Prince, always a voracious reader, 
used to write asking for all manner of books, from works 
on philosophy to the popular novels of the day : " Clarissa 
Harlowe," " Joseph Andrews," and " Tom Jones," in 
French as weU as English. But not only with his literary 
commissions did the Prince charge his erudite correspon- 
dent : she was requested to procure for him such homely 
articles as a razor-case with four razors, a shaving-mirror, 
and a strong pocket-book with a lock. There is no reason 
to believe, however, that Mdlle. Ferrand in her short 
life — for she died when quite young, in 1752 — ever became 
more than a friend to the Prince, although Madame de 
Tahnond persuaded herself of the contrary. And it was 
chiefly the Princess's jealousy of MdUe. Ferrand that 
caused her to leave the Prince late in 1750. After this 
rupture, in Charles's letters to MdUe. Ferrand, the once 
adored cousin figures as ''la vieille tante " or "la vieille 
femme." And matters were not improved when the 
Prince's correspondent showed one of these letters to 
the lady in question. But such indiscretions were 

^ Mr. Lang in " Pickle the Spy " claims to have identified her \vith 
a Mdlle. Luci of Charles's correspondence. 



270 FROM THE CRUSADES 

necessarily rare, for the ladies, as may be imagined, were 
not often on speaking terms. Their intercourse was 
generally carried on in a series of dignified notes, many 
of which, copied in the Prince's own handwriting, are 
preserved among the Stuart papers. 

The " last words " between Charles and Madame de 
Talmond were exchanged in the summer of 175 1. Mdlle. 
Ferrand died in the autumn of the following year. By 
that time Charles had returned to his former mistress, 
Miss Walkinshaw. 

As far as can be ascertained, Charles and the Princess 
never met again. Years afterwards, in 1765, Madame de 
Talmond was in Rome. And then Cardinal York \\Tote 
to his brother : — 

" She (the Princess) always speaks of your Royal 
Highness with the greatest regard and respect, and really 
seems to be sincerely attached to you. She complains 
that she never can hear of you, and thinks she deserves a 
share in your remembrance." 

The Princess had then been six years a widow. Her 
much-tried husband before his death had persuaded her 
to renounce her philosophical opinions and return to the 
Catholic Church. She was now extremely devout. 

In the following year she was at Paris occupying 
" charitable apartments " in the Luxembourg. And it 
was there that Horace Walpole visited her. 

With the affectation of a man of the world, Walpole, 
WTiting to his friend Gray, would have him believe that it 
was something of a bore to be obliged to visit this middle- 
aged Princess. But in reality he must have been curious 
to see the fair shrew about whose quarrels with her 
princely lover he must frequently have heard from 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 271 

his " old blind one," as he called his friend Madame 
dii Deffand, 

" I have been sent for about like an African prince or a 
learned canary-bird," he writes, " and was, in particular, 
carried by force to the Princess of Talmond, the Queen's 
cousin, who lives in a charitable apartment in the Luxem- 
bourg, and was sitting on a small bed hung with saints and 
Sobieskis, in a corner of one of those vast chambers,-^ lit 
by two blinking tapers." 

When after stumbling over a dog, a cat, a footstool, 
and other things, Walpole reached her presence, she had 
not a syllable to say to him. But the spirit of earlier 
days, when for her men had existed only to receive her 
commands, soon returned, and before her visitor left she 
had so far recovered her conversational powers as to beg 
him to send her a lap-dog. 

Not long afterwards, Walpole, writing to George 
Montagu, relates how one morning the Princess sent him 
a picture of two pug dogs and a black and white greyhound 
wretchedly painted. At first Walpole could not conceive 
what he was to do with " this daub," but in an accompany- 
ing note the Princess warned him not to hope to keep it. 
It was only to imprint on his memory the size and features 
and spots of " Diana," her departed greyhound, in order 
that he might get her exactly such another. " Don't you 
think my memory will return well stored," asked the 
cavaUer, " if it is littered with defunct lap-dogs ? She is 
so devout that I did not dare send her word that I am not 
possessed of a twig of Jacob's broom, with which he 
streaked cattle as he pleased." 

This for some time appeared to be our last glimpse of 

» Horace Walpole, "Letters," ed. Cunningham, IV., 472, 490 ; and 
" Lettres de la Marquise du Deffand k Horace Walpole," ed. Paget 
Toynbee, 1912, II., 565, note. 



272 FROM THE CRUSADES 

the Princesse de Talmond. But in the recently published 
letters of Madame du Deffand to Horace Walpole -^ we 
find that brilliant and malicious lady giving an inimitable 
description of the Princess's death-bed scene. 

In a letter dated December 29th, 1773, Madame du 
Deffand writes : — 

" I may tell you that this letter will not be long. For 
the news I have to announce is not sufticiently interesting 
to require me to sacrifice my hope of sleep. That hope 
will be vain perhaps. I have long lost the habit of 
sleeping. But Madame de Talmond has lost the habit 
of living. So she has surpassed me. She died on the 25th 
of this month like a veritable heroine of romance. 

" On the eve of her death she had her doctors, her con- 
fessor and her steward round her bed. To her doctors she 
said : ' Gentlemen, you have killed me, but it was accord- 
ing to your rules and your principles ;' to her confessor : 
' You have done your duty by inspiring me with great 
terror ' ; to her steward : ' You are here at the request 
of my servants, who wish me to make my will. You are 
all playing your parts well, but you wdll agree that I also 
am not playing mine badly.' 

" Then she confessed, received the Communion, and 
added a codicil to her will which she had made some time 
before. Madame Adelaide ^ she created her sole legatee. 
Her jewels she bequeathed to Madame Adelaide and her 
sisters,^ her watch and her porcelain to M. de Maurepas, 
and small legacies to old friends with whom she had 
quarrelled, and who had figured in her former will which 
she had not revoked. For her burial," concluded 
Madame du Deffand, " the Princess had prepared a gown 
of blue and silver and a beautiful lace cap ; but the Arch- 
bishop, disapproving of such display, commanded that 
gown and cap should be sold for the benefit of the poor." 

1 Ed. cit., 1912, II., 564 — 565. 

2 Louis XV. 's eldest daughter. 
'^ A toutes mesdames. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 273 



CHAPTER XI 

THE FAMILY DURING THE REVOLUTION. 
1764— 1839. 

One can hardly imagine irony more grim than that 
with which, on the verge of the Revolution, the pastoral 
pictures of the French nobility represent France as a land 
where it is always afternoon. In these pictures, the 
inhabitants of France seem to have no other care than to 
play at being peasants and peasantesses, and to follow the 
example set by their fascinating Queen, who, in white 
cambric frock, straw hat and muslin fichu, superintends 
the milking of cows in her hameau at Versailles. 

Then, as now, the simple life was all the fashion. To the 
rumbling thunder of the Revolution these fine folk in 
their mock simplicity turned a deaf ear. If ever an echo 
of its rolling broke in upon their complacence they drowned 
it by tuning up their violins for villagers to dance to. 

Such thoughts are suggested by an interesting La 
Tremoille group which represents the Ducal family 
some ten years before the outbreak of the Revolution.-^ 
Here the Duke and Duchess, Jean Bretagne^ and Marie de 
Salm, seated upon a rock, in a garden, with a rivulet 
flowing at their feet, are surrounded by their four sons, 
boys of some ten or twelve summers, all busily engaged 
in various rural pursuits. 

1 Reproduced in " Souvenirs de la Revolution," published by Duke 
Louis Charles, 1901. 

2 1737—1792. 

C.R. T 



274 FROM THE CRUSADES 

The Prince Talmond/ who was to die a brave death in 
La Vendee, is placidly watering plants ; while his twin 
brother, Charles Auguste,^ whose own head was to fall 
beneath the guillotine, here, armed with garden shears, 
is apparently intent on himself decapitating innocent 
flowers. The other two brothers, eldest and youngest of 
the family, the Prince de Tarente ^ and the Prince de La 
Tremoille,* both destined to wander through Europe 
serving in foreign armies against their Sans-culottes 
countrymen, now, equipped one with gun the other with 
fishing rod, figure as the sportsmen of this family picture. 

Real country life played no part in the upbringing of 
these four brothers. The La Tremoilles had long ago 
forsaken their country castles for residence in Paris. 
There Duke Jean occupied a hotel in the Palais Royal, 
which was then the most fashionable quarter. 

With the shifting of the centre of fashion from the left 
to the right bank of the Seine, the La Tremoilles had 
abandoned their beautiful mansion,^ one of the finest 
gems of fifteenth century architecture, which the great 
Louis de La Tremoille had, in 1490, built near the 
Luxembourg. 

Then, as now, however, the intellectual centre con- 
tinued on the left bank, and it was at the college of Plessis, 
incorporated by Cardinal Richelieu's wiU with the 
Sorbonne, that Duke Jean's sons were educated. After a 

^ Antoine Philippe de La Tremoille, 1765 — 1794. 

2 He became Dean of Strasbourg, and was executed in June, 1794. 

^ Charles Bretagne, later Due de La Tremoille, 1764 — 1839. 

* Louis Stanislas Kotzka, 1768 — 1837. 

* See Viollet-le-Duc, " Dictionnaire Raisonne de I'Architecture Fran- 
caise," 1858 — 1S68, VI., 2S2 — 2S4. Its chief entrance was in the 
Rue des Bourdonnais, but its garden extended to the Rue Tirechappe. 
In 1840 the hotel was still standing. Then Viollet-le-Duc, in collabora- 
tion with the Commissioners of Historical Monuments, endeavoured in 
vain to save it from destruction. All he could do was to procure the 
preservation in the Musee des Beaux Arts of a few of its fragments. 




FACADE OF THE HOTEL DE LA TREMOILLE AT PARIS 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 275 

few years at college three of the princes, Charles Bretagne, 
Antoine Philippe and Louis Stanislas, entered the army. 
Charles Auguste took orders and became eventually Dean 
of Strasbourg. 

The eldest son, Charles, Prince de Tarente, was married 
young, when a mere boy, at the age of sixteen, to a great 
heiress, Emmannuelle, the Duchesse de Chatillon's second 
daughter, who was a year and a half her husband's senior. 
In the Prince's extremely frank Recollections,^ written 
after the turmoil of the Revolution had subsided, he 
admits that at the time of their marriage, his bride's only 
attraction was her expectation of an income of 200,000 
francs. For, as a girl of seventeen, Emmannuelle, who 
was later to develop into a handsome woman, was nothing 
but a shy gawky miss. From so unalluring a wife, 
Emmannuelle's boy bridegroom did not grieve to find 
himself compelled to part immediately after the nuptial 
ceremony by a summons to join his regiment in Normandy. 

Their military duties left the La Tremoille princes 
ample time for the pursuit of pleasure, which they eagerly 
followed, not along those rural paths which their family 
portrait might suggest, but amidst the gaieties and 
dissipations of towns and watering-places, where the 
playthings they most affected were not garden shears or 
watering-pots or pruning hooks so much as race-horses, 
cards and the wiles of fair women. 

Brave soldiers they all were, but voluptuaries too. 
The Prince de Tarente in his Recollections does not hesi- 
tate to confess as much. There he admits that at nineteen 
he lost a fortune in one bout of card-playing which lasted 
twenty-four continuous hours, and that to pay his 

1 Published by his son, Duke Louis Charles, in " Les La Tremoilles 
pendant cinq. Sidcles." Vol. V. Passages from them also the DuKe 
has included in " Les Souvenirs de La Princesse de Tarente." 

T 2 



276 FROM THE CRUSADES 

gambling debts his mother persuaded the Duke, his 
father, to mortgage lands near Thouars. 

After this disaster the Prince de Tarente vowed to 
abjure cards, and to the letter of his resolution he 
vigorously adhered for the rest of his days. But other 
games of chance as well as amours, horse-racing, and at 
least two duels contributed to his adventurous career an 
equal excitement. 

This gay hfe, doubtless the typical existence of many a 
young French noble of that time, the Prince frankly 
describes in his Souvenirs : — 

" For two summers," he writes, " I visited the Spa of 
Plombieres, where I ran my horses against the EngHsh, 
among others the Duke of Bedford.^ My losses were 
about equal to my gains. But the dash I was cutting 
attracted the attention of a lady, who was then the rage, 
rather for her wit than her beauty, for her face was 
merely fresh and animated. With my philosophical 
[sic) ideas as to the fairness of women I should have 
preferred a pretty, fresh grisette to a princess devoid of 
those real attractions ; so I began by chaffing the assiduous 
courtiers of this queen of fashion. She, piqued by my 
behaviour, swore to attach me to her train. She 
succeeded. Nevertheless I remained heart-whole, and 
my flattered pride was the only tie which for four or 
five years bound me to her." 

The Prince de Tarente was the most dissipated of the 
three brothers. But Antoine, the La Vendee hero, was 
almost as much addicted to pleasure. At twenty-five he 
was already afflicted with the family's tendency to 
corpulence, and with so much more than a tendency to the 
family gout that at times during the La Vendee campaigns 

1 This was Fox's famous friend, and Burke's Mte noir, ruthlessly 
satirised in the " Anti- Jacobin." 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 277 

he was disabled from going into action. This weakness, 
however, did not prevent him from playing a heroic part 
dming the La Vendee struggle. Yet war did not absorb 
him so deeply but that he found time during its progress 
for more than one amorous intrigue. 

Prince Louis de La Tremoille, the youngest of the three 
brothers, served the royal cause as a soldier in La Vendee 
and as a diplomat at various European courts. Yet he, 
too, was capable of controlling his royalist ardour in order 
for a while to pursue his own interest. For some years 
during the Revolution period he became a fortune-hunter, 
and we shall find him dancing attendance on his aged 
kinswoman Sophie, Countess Bentinck,^ in the vain hope 
that she would make him her heir. 

It was probably soon after the famous Quatorze Juillet 
that Duke Jean and his Duchess committed what the 
Republicans described as " the crime of emigration," and 
sought refuge in Savoy, turning their backs upon a land 
which, in their opinion, hordes of barbarians were striving 



1 Table showing the relationship of Sophie, Countess Bentinck, to 
the La Tremoilles : — 

Charles Henry, Prince de Tarente, d. 1670. 



Charles Hollande, Charlotte Amdlie, 

Due de La Tremoille. Comtesse d'Altenburg. 

I I 

Charles Bretagne, Anthony, Comte d'Altenburg. 

Due de La Tremoille. | 

I I 

Charles Armand Rene, Sophie, m. Count Bentinck, 

Due de La Tremoille. 2nd son of the ist Earl of 



Jean Bretagne, 
Due de La Tremoille. 



Charles Bretagne, Louis, Prince de 
Dae de La Tremoille. La Tremoille. 



Portland. 



278 FROM THE CRUSADES 

to convert " into a savage country peopled by a few 
tribes of cannibals." But the La Tremoilles had a 
further inducement for their flight, in the fact that the 
Duchess was suffering from consumption, of which she 
died at Nice in 1790. 

Round their beloved mother's death-bed gathered her 
four sons, coming, three of them from France, and the 
eldest, Charles Bretagne, from Turin, which was then the 
headquarters of the royal princes. After the funeral of 
the Duchess, leaving their father with his youngest son in 
Savoy, where two years later, in May, 1792, the Duke 
died at Chambery, the La Tremoille brothers dispersed, 
never, all four of them, to meet again. Two, as we have 
seen, were to perish during the Revolution ; two, after 
many adventures in various countries of Europe, returned 
with ruined fortunes and disappointed hopes, to settle in 
their native land. 

A few months after Duke Jean's death, the Revolution 
Government, seized the La Tremoille estates, by virtue 
of two laws passed by the Legislative Assembly decree- 
ing the confiscation of emigrants' property. In vain did 
the family represent that Duke Jean was not an emigre, 
having left France on account of his wife's health ; the 
Revolutionaries continued to hold those vast domains in 
the west, accumulated in La Tremoille hands throughout 
five centuries. Seven years later by the Directory's 
order we find the Thenars lands being sold by auction 
for the State's benefit. 

At the time of her mother-in-law's death, the Prince de 
Tarente's wife, Emmannuelle de Chatillon, was in Paris. 
In 1785 she had become lady-in-waiting to Marie 
Antoinette ; and with the beautiful Queen whom she 
adored, she remained through all the crises of the 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 279 

Revolution until that fatal day when V Autrichienne was 
imprisoned in the Temple. 

So, while her husband had been flaunting fashion at 
race-courses and spas, the Princesse de Tarente had 
remained in the heart of things at Paris. She had now 
grown into a beautiful, clever woman. And La Tremoille 
in describing his dissipations at Plombieres boasts of his 
conjugal fidelity : — 

" All this while," he writes, " I did not neglect my 
wife. Her only failing was that she did not bear 
me children. However, in the winter of 1788 — 9, she 
gave birth to a daughter, whom we called Caroline. I 
learnt her death in the beginning of 1791, at Turin, that 
earliest nest of the emigrants, where I had joined the 
Comte d'Artois." 

Emmannuelle de Chatillon can never have laboured 
under any illusion with regard to her husband. From 
her wedding day, when he left her at the church door, 
until the end of her life, she seems to have regarded him as 
a wayward child. Her affection for the Queen, was her 
great passion ; and when the Prince de Tarente wrote 
asking his wife to join him abroad, she refused to forsake 
her mistress. 

The Princess as well as her husband has left us her 
recollections. In the thrilling pages of this, one of 
the most interesting of Revolution records, the writer, 
with graphic pen, describes the most stirring events of 
those stirring times, from the terrible October days 
when the Baker, the Baker's wife and the Baker's boy 
were brought by a howling mob from Versailles to Paris, 
aU through the confinement of that Baker's family in the 
Tuileries, until the fatal morning of August loth, 1792, 



28o FROM THE CRUSADES 

when they walked into the Hon's mouth and took refuge 
with the Assembly. 

From a window in the Palace, on that sad morning, the 
Princess watched her beloved Queen, with her husband, 
children and sister-in-law, walk across the gardens to the 
Monastery of the Feuillants, there to throw themselves on 
the mercy of the Convention. Madame de Tarente then 
little thought that she was gazing on her adored sovereign 
for the last time : she expected the royal family to 
return in an hour or so. But very soon after their 
departure the sound of firing was heard, and the noise of 
the mob breaking into the Palace. The Princess with 
other ladies of the Queen's suite locked themselves in one 
of the royal apartments. There, like persons frightened 
by a thunderstorm, they drew down the blinds, closed the 
shutters and Ht all the candles, hoping thus to shut out 
the hideous yells of the mob, the noise of firing, and the 
sight of the grim scenes which were being enacted in the 
Palace gardens. But the infuriated horde soon broke 
through all the bolts and bars which these defenceless 
women had erected against them. In the midst of the 
panic and confusion which ensued one of the invaders, his 
dark heart illuminated by a flash of pity, cried, " don't 
hurt the women." Madame de Tarente immediately 
seized her opportunity, and entreating mercy, obtained 
protection for herself, for a young girl who had been com- 
mitted to her charge, and for an elderly lady. Their 
deliverer, conducting them through the desolated Palace, 
past the dead bodies of the King's retainers, brought them 
out by a side door on to the quay near the Pont Royal. 
There he left them to contend alone with new adventures. 
Making their way along the lower path by the riverside, 
the fugitives attracted the attention of loiterers on the 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 281 

opposite bank : they were fired upon and then seized by 
a group of Revolutionaries. Dragged in the broiling 
August sun across the Place Louis Quinze,-*^ these unhappy 
women were taken to a committee of the Section sitting 
in the Rue Neuve-des-Capucins. There, in a member of 
the committee they were fortunate in finding a protector. 
Dismissing the angry mob with the promise that the 
captives should be brought to justice, he welcomed the 
ladies kindly and, after their pursuers had dispersed, sent 
them well guarded to the house of Madame de Tarente's 
grandmother, the Duchesse de la Valliere. 

In her grandmother's house for some days the Princess 
remained in concealment, longing to join her Queen in the 
Temple prison, and filled with envy when the young 
companion of her escape, PauHne de Tourzel, was sum- 
moned to her Sovereign's side. 

It was not the Temple but the Abbaye prison that 
awaited Madame de Tarente. Her hiding place was dis- 
covered, and to the Abbaye, after trial by one of the 
Revolution committees, she was taken on August 27th. 
Her entrance into that grim abode she has vividly de- 
scribed in her Recollections. Dragged through what 
appeared like a narrow slit in the wall, as the prison door 
banged behind her, its noise resounded to the depths of her 
heart. 

" At the sound of the shooting of the bolts," she 
writes, " I felt myself cut off from the whole world. It 
was ten o'clock in the evening. A horrible smell of gin 
made me feel sick. With morbid curiosity I gazed around 
me, but could see nothing." 

For eight days Madame de Tarente remained in the 
Abbaye. On September 2nd began the terrible prison 

1 Now Place de la Concorde. 



282 FROM THE CRUSADES 

massacres. All the hideous scenes of those two black 
days and nights the Princess paints in striking colours. 
She herself only narrowly escaped sharing the horrible 
fate of the Princesse de Lamballe. By a marvellous piece 
of good fortune, Madame de Tarente's sufferings had from 
the first inspired pity in the heart of a certain M. Chancey, 
a member of the committee which had tried her. Now 
for the second time she owed her deliverance to a Revo- 
lutionary. And it was through M. Chancey 's efforts, 
seconded by what can only be described as wonderful good 
luck, that the Princess escaped with her life. 

Into the gory hands of the murderous mob pressing 
round the prison gates like hungry beasts of prey, Madame 
de Tarente was delivered, not as a victim to be slaughtered, 
but as a captive wrongly accused, whose innocence had 
now been established. " A triumph for Madame," cried 
her saviour. Two hundred voices echoed, " A triumph 
for Madame." And almost fainting, but clutching 
tightly in her hand the dirty, crumpled, mud-bespattered 
scrap of paper, which was the charter of her liberty, the 
Princess was raised shoulder high and carried through the 
crowd, who as warmly applauded her escape as but a few 
moments before they had welcomed the dying groans of 
their victims. Entering a carriage waiting at the end of 
the street, Madame de Tarente was driven to the house of 
her mother, the Duchesse de Chatillon, in the Rue du Bac. 

But there the Queen's ci-devant lady-in-waiting was by 
no means safe from Republican hatred ; and so, yielding 
to her friends' entreaties, she consented to emigrate. At 
six o'clock in the morning, on September 13th, accom^ 
panied by her brother-in-law, Antoine Philippe, Prince de 
Talmond, she passed through the garden gate of the 
Duchess's house and walked down to the Pont Royal, 




MARIE ANTOINETTE AFTER THE KING'S DEATH 
From a portrait drawn in the Temple and presented to the Princesse de Tarente 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 283 

where she entered a cab, a curious kind of a vehicle, so it 
seemed to her, for an aristocrat to drive in. By this 
plebeian mode of conveyance she reached Amiens. 
Thence the bourgeois cab returned to Paris, while its 
occupants in a phaeton continued their way as far as 
Boulogne. 

There, having been warned that Revolutionary agents 
were observing their movements, it was deemed dangerous 
to wait for the packet which should start for England on 
the morrow. So, at midnight, crouching in the hold of a 
dirty little boat, to which she had been carried by a still 
dirtier sailor, Madame de Tarente watched the dark blue 
sky, the glittering stars and the receding shores of France. 

The land of her birth she was never to see again, except 
once, years later, when for a brief space, before starting 
for a distant land, she returned to visit her little daughter's 
grave. 

In this hazardous voyage the Princess was stiU accom- 
panied by her faithful brother-in-law, Talmond, who 
but a few months later was to give his life for the King in 
La Vendee. This was Talmond's second visit to England 
that year. During the Revolution period the La Tremoille 
brothers were constantly crossing the Channel to visit 
their friends among the Enghsh aristocracy, and to solicit 
aid from the English Government for the royal cause in 
France. 

Among the La Tremoilles' friends in England was the 
Marquis of Queensberry, the famous " old Q." He now 
placed at the Princess's disposal his beautiful villa at 
Richmond, where, during her five years' residence -^ in 
England, Madame de Tarente dwelt, in company with 

^ 1792 — 1797. 



284 FROM THE CRUSADES 

that fair lady of disputed parentage, Maria Fagniani 
afterwards Countess of Yarmouth.^ 

It was at Richmond that the Princess wrote her 
Recollections. And it was there that she was rejoined by 
her husband. The Prince de Tarente, or Due de La 
Tremoille,^ as he now by courtesy might be called, his 
father having died in this year, was then living with other 
French nobles in a house at Bedford. After a series of 
disasters resulting from what he has himself described as 
" his natural frivohty and thoughtlessness," his estate had 
been considerably reduced, and, when his wife arrived in 
England, the Duke was in great financial embarrassment. 

The story of his life since his mother's death in 1790 
is the record of constant wanderings through Europe in 
search of pleasure, or in the performance of some diplo- 
matic mission — driving in a cabriolet from Turin to 
Rome, and from Rome to Mantua, riding post-haste, 
almost incessantly, so he says, for four days and five 
nights from Mantua to Nice. Then there followed a gay 
winter in London, where the Prince of Wales regarded 
him as a leader of fashion, admiring his shoe-buckles and 
borrowing his valet. In the spring, in the midst of a ball, 
where he was " dancing with a fair one who was by no 
means deaf to his gallant propositions," the news of the 
French Republic's declaration of war summoned him 
back to the Continent. 

Joining the Comte d'Artois, to whom he became aide- 
de-camp. La Tremoille soon found himself at Coblentz, 
where he was bored to death by the constant bickerings of 
the royalist leaders, and by the seriousness of the emigre 
women. 

1 Both "Q." and George Selwyn claimed to be her father. 

2 All titles of nobility had been abolished by the National Assembly 
in the early days of the Revolution. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 285 

"The ladies here freeze me," he wrote to the Duchesse 
de Piennes in England. " For the five days I have been 
here I have not been able to say a single word to them . . . 
I can't endure women who want to direct empires and who 
think of anything save their own and others' pleasure." 

Over the campaign of 1792 the Prince in his Recollec- 
tions passes lightly, forbearing to mention that at his own 
expense he raised and equipped a company of hussars. 

At the close of the campaign, when the army went into 
winter quarters, he obtained permission to go to Vienna, 
where he hoped to obtain an imperial fief to compensate 
for his lost French estates. 

The gaieties of his life in London during the previous 
winter and of a visit to the waters of Spa in the spring, 
combined with the expenses of the war, had drained his 
purse. And in order to recover his fortunes. La Tremoille 
listened readily to an adventurer, one Comte Armand, 
whom he met on the road to Vienna, and who boasted 
that he was possessed of an infallible tip for winning huge 
sums at rouge et noir. Count Armand attached himself 
to the Duke, and soon became his evil genius. It was at 
the Count's suggestion that, in order to obtain money for 
his hazardous play, La Tremoille borrowed from the 
confiding Due de Richelieu, then at Vienna, a valuable 
family heirloom, in the shape of a sword set with diamonds. 
The only bankers likely to offer an adequate sum on the 
security of the sword were to be found in London. Conse- 
quently La Tremoille, with his sword and his bad angel, 
without waiting for the Emperor's reply to his request, 
set out to drive across Europe. 

It was late autumn ; the weather was abominable, and 
the roads worse ; moreover, in order to avoid falling in 
with the Republican army, the Duke and his companion 



286 FROM THE CRUSADES 

were compelled to follow circuitous routes and by-ways, 
on one of which their carriage was overturned. In the 
end, however, they reached Ostend in safety, and there 
embarked for London. At the Court of St. James's, La 
Tremoille received a hearty welcome. With the money 
raised on the sword he was able to buy horses and set up a 
large estabhshment. The Prince of Wales carried him off 
to Basingstoke ; the Duke of Bedford, with whom we 
found him consorting at Plombieres, invited him to hunt 
at Woburn Abbey. Armand meanwhile was left in 
London to stake what remained of the borrowed capital 
at rouge et noir. 

In such gay society, while his wife was in the Abbaye 
prison, and his Sovereign was being tried for his life, the 
Duke passed the autumn and winter of 1792 — 3. 

" Our amusements," he writes, " were hardly decorous, 
for with the Prince of Wales the order of the day was to 
drink without ceasing, so that when bedtime came I could 
not stand upon my legs." 

From such conviviality in the country La Tremoille was 
summoned back to London by the news that Count 
Armand's infallible tip had failed, that luck was turning 
against him, and that the money raised on the sword was 
vanishing rapidly. The Duke returned to London to find 
himself once again reduced to poverty. He sold up his 
estabhshment, which, he writes, had become a refuge for 
French adventurers of both sexes, " a veritable den of 
thieves," and went down to Bedford to join his friends, 
the Duke and Duchess of Piennes. Thence he went over 
to Richmond to visit his wife. 

The meeting between the Duke and Duchess can hardly 
have been a very pleasant one. While Madame de 
Tarente had been loyally serving her King and Queen, 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 287 

enduring imprisonment and risking death for their sakes, 
her husband had been absorbed in the pursuit of pleasure. 
Madame de Tarente was scandaHsed by his follies ; but 
while reproaching him bitterly, she generously placed 
her fortune at his disposal. His wife's financial help, 
however, the Prince refused ; " she needed all her 
resources for herself," he writes. 

Soon afterwards came the news of the execution of 
Louis XVL, which was followed by England's declaration 
of war against the French Republic. For service in this 
war several new cavalry regiments were raised ; and over 
one of them La Tremoille would have received the 
command, had it not been for what the Duke himself 
describes as his own stupid blunder. It happened in the 
following manner. As he was passing by Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert's house in London, the Prince of Wales came to 
the window and called out : " My dear Prince, I have 
some good news for you ; I appoint you colonel of a 
regiment of light cavalry we are about to raise ; you are 
to enter our service." To this announcement La Tre- 
moille answered : " I am truly sensible of the amiability 
of your Royal Highness, but, having taken service with 
Monseigneur, le Prince de Conde, I cannot accept your 
Highness's offer without his permission." No sooner 
were the words out of his mouth than La Tremoille 
realised their awkwardness ; for the Prince turned pale 
with anger and said : "If that is so, then consider my 
proposal as if it had never been made, and I wish you 
good luck." 

From that day all relations between the Duke and the 
Prince of Wales ceased. For La Tremoille's character 
this breach with his royal friend was by no means 
disastrous, for it converted him from a mere pleasure- 



288 FROM THE CRUSADES 

seeking man of fashion into an energetic, courageous 
soldier, fighting with loyalty and devotion in his Sovereign's 
cause. 

Immediately after his quarrel with the Prince La 
Tremoille left England for the Continent. But, although 
he had thus thoughtlessly represented himself as engaged 
to the Prince de Conde, he knew full well that in Conde's 
army he would not be likely to find employment. For 
the royalist princes, especially the Comte d'Artois, could 
not forgive him for forsaking them and going to England 
after the campaign of 1792. 

Nevertheless, disembarking at Ostend, the Duke, 
accompanied by his brother, Prince Louis, proceeded to 
join Conde's army on the Rhine. On the way he passed 
through Brussels, where he borrowed money from his 
mother's relatives on the security of her estate. But on 
his arrival at Bingen, then the headquarters of the emigres, 
La Tremoille found himself regarded as a deserter because 
of his winter spent in England. 

He, therefore, resolved to return to Vienna and investi- 
gate the progress made by his demand for an imperial 
fief which the Emperor had referred to the AuHc Council. 
At Vienna he found that the Council, before granting his 
request, would require the production of a capital sum 
which far exceeded his means. 

The next chapter of his adventures may best be related 
in the Duke's own words. 

" I became intimate," he writes, " with the amiable 
Marquis del Gallo, NeapoHtan ambassador at the court of 
Vienna, who offered me the rank of colonel aide-de-camp 
to his sovereign with a salary of 8,000 to 10,000 francs. 
I accepted, forgetting that I was thus tacitly renouncing 
my family's claim to the kingdom of Naples. The 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 289 

recognition of my title, Prince of Taranto/ was refused 
and I was treated as a grandee of Spain, True I was 
addressed as Excellency, but then German princelets were 
called your Highness, while I was only Signor Principe 
like the grandson of any fishmonger rich enough to buy 
the title." 

Having accepted Gallo's offer. La Tremoille apparently 
went to Naples. For he goes on to relate his dealings 
with the famous Englishman who was at that time 
governing the Neapolitan kingdom. 

" In my first interview with General Acton,^ the 
favourite minister of Queen Caroline and more powerful 
than King Ferdinand," he writes, " I realised that in 
order to please him I must become the chief of his sbirri, 
see everything, hear everything, then report everything. 
If I would consent, then I should be colonel of a 
Macedonian (or an Albanian) regiment in garrison at 
Naples, a horde of scoundrels always hatching revo- 
lutionary plots which had to be discovered. But I had 
no wish to serve as chief of police to this hard-featured, 
tyrannical-looking, atrabilious satrap. After dinner I 
gave him to understand that the Marquis del Gallo had 
spoken to me of the rank of a colonel aide-de-camp to the 
King, with the command of an auxiliary corps in Lom- 
bardy. The next day the King and Queen most 
graciously received me. Two days later I had my com- 
mission and set out for Lombardy, there to join five 
cavalry regiments, commanded by Cuto. This old general 

1 Henceforth until its formal recognition by Louis XVIII. in 1819, 
the title " Prince of Taranto " seems to have been in abeyance. After 
Wagram, Napoleon created General Macdonald Duke of Taranto. 

2 Sir John Acton (1736 — 181 1), son of a London goldsmith and a 
French lady of Besanfon, where Acton was born. Having entered the 
Tuscan navy, Acton so distinguished himself in that service that he was 
entrusted with the organisation of the Neapolitan naval forces. He 
then became Commander-in-Chief of the Neapolitan army and Prime 
Minister. He detested the French, and his influence over Queen 
Caroline, whose lover he is said to have been, was disastrous for the 
kingdom of Naples. 

C.R. U 



290 FROM THE CRUSADES 

treated me with the coldest and most casual politeness. 
He wrongly regarded me as General Acton's spy, and 
seemed determined to prove me as useless as the fifth 
wheel of a cart. He gave me nothing to do and every day 
when I asked him for orders, he would reply : " Nothing 
at all ; niente a fatto." I sat at his table with his two 
aides-de-camp ; but it was far from good, for he was a 
veritable skinflint." 

To his great relief, after a short time with this old 
curmudgeon. La Tremoille was ordered to join Radetzky, 
chief staff officer and aide-de-camp to Beaulieu, who in 
1796 was appointed commander-in-chief of the Austrian 
army in North Italy. In Radetzky 's service there was 
no lack of employment. La Tremoille's knowledge of 
German and Italian rendered him invaluable as corre- 
spondent of the army, while his quickness of perception 
and the alertness of movement he had cultivated in the 
hunting field enabled him to do first-rate work as a scout. 

In that memorable retreat of Beaulieii's forces pursued 
by Buonaparte across the plain of Lombardy, La Tremoille 
commanded in the rearguard. He was present at the 
Battle of Lodi. That action, though it lasted but twenty 
minutes, involved, writes the Duke, the most terrible 
slaughter he had ever seen. 

During the following day and two nights Radetzky kept 
La Tremoille busy reconnoitring. For the whole of the 
day after Lodi, from four o'clock in the morning until 
darkness fell, he had not a moment in which to take food. 

" On the second night," he writes, " Radetzky entrusted 
me with the delicate and difficult task of reconnoitring 
along the Adigio and of distinguishing between our friends 
and our foes. . . . The troops were so close together that 
in the darkness it was difficult to tell whether the fires in 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 291 

the bivouacs belonged to the French or to the Austiians. 
We were surrounded by them. One attracted my atten- 
tion. It was a httle off the road leading up to the Gam- 
barani Bridge. This was no joke, and it was imperative 
to discover to which side it belonged. I had only taken 
my orderly with me. Him I left to look after my horse. 
Then, crawling on my stomach, noiselessly through the 
vines, I came to within fifteen feet of a French bivouac 
fire. They had two or three wounded with them. They 
were swearing and cursing the Austrians, whom they said 
they would like to throw into the Adigio. And in truth 
they were on the point of doing it. Yet we were still in a 
position to cross the river." 

Then the Duke relates how this passage was effected in 
the darkness, how the wheels of carts and gun-carriages 
were bound round with straw, and how, thanks to German 
taciturnity, a column of 9,000 to 10,000 men with all their 
artillery and baggage wagons passed 300 paces from the 
enemy's main body without being heard. 

La Tremoille was uncertain whether, during this 
campaign, he ever actually saw Buonaparte. There was 
a general on horseback on the Bridge at Lodi who may 
have been he. But he was enveloped in smoke, and the 
Prince, from portraits he saw afterwards, thought it more 
likely to have been Augereau. 

The crossing of the Adigio closed the campaign of 1796. 
His Neapolitan cavalry, under the command of a brave 
Spaniard, Marshal Ruitz, La Tremoille sent into winter 
quarters in the Tyrol, while he himself visited Lausanne, 
Turin and Venice. Count Radetzky, highly pleased with 
his services, had mentioned him in the most flattering 
manner in the reports he had sent to Vienna. 

It was about this time that the Duchesse de La 
Tremoille, whom her husband had left in England, was 

u 2 



292 FROM THE CRUSADES 

invited by the Czar and Czarina to become lady-in-waiting 
at the court of St. Petersburg. 

Paul I. and his wife, Maria Feodorovna, before their 
accession to the throne of all the Russias, had visited 
Paris incognito as the Comte and Comtesse du Nord. 
And there at the house of her grandmother, the Duchesse 
de la Valliere, Madame de Tarente had made their 
acquaintance. She now accepted their invitation, and set 
sail for Cronstadt on board a Russian frigate which they 
had sent for her. In Russia, suffering much, as long as he 
lived, from the vagaries of the eccentric Czar Paul,^ the 
Duchess continued to reside until her death in 1814. 
That her husband did not join her there was not his fault ; 
for from his wdfe's correspondence '^ we learn that he more 
than once proposed coming to St. Petersburg. But after 
his unfortunate experience in England no doubt the 
Duchess dreaded for him an idle life of pleasure among the 
French emigres who had thronged to the Russian capital. 
And she was doubtless right. For the Duke's voluptuous- 
ness and frivolity must there have led him into follies as 
wild as those he had committed in England and elsewhere. 
It was also more in accordance with the traditions of 
his house that he should remain in Italy fighting against 
the enemies of his King. 

Unhappily, however, through the campaign of 1797, as 
the result of a disagreement between Austria and Naples, 
there was nothing for La Tremoille to do but vegetate at 
Naples. This he detested. Naples did not possess the 
attractions of London or Vienna. Moreover, he was 
surrounded by enemies, for Queen Caroline, Sir John 

1 Fortunately he died in iSoi. For an interesting account of his 
reign, see K. Waliszewski, " Le Fils de la Grande Catherine " (1912). 

2 Published with her " Souvenirs " bj' Duke Louis Charles de La 
Tremoille. 




EMMANUELLE DE CHATILLON, PRINCESSE DE TARENTE 
AND DUCHESSE DE LA TREiMOILLE 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 293 

Acton and the notorious Lady Hamilton, who was then 
very powerful at Naples, all dishked the French. The 
Neapolitan officers, too, were jealous of this French Duke, 
and accused him of treachery in the previous campaign. 

The King, however, remained his friend ; and in the 
following year La Tremoille received a command in 
General Mack's army, first under the Prince of Hesse 
Philipstal, whom he disliked for having worsted him in 
love, and then under a personal friend, the Chevalier de 
Saxe. In the neighbourhood of Rome there was a good 
deal of fighting with the French. At Civita Castellana, 
Saxe received a bullet in the stomach, whereupon his 
troops, crying " the general is dead," turned and fled in 
disorder. There was a general rout, and the soldiers fired 
upon their officers when they attempted to rally them. 

In the place of Saxe, who was unable to travel, La 
Tremoille was summoned to Rome to report on this 
disaster to Acton and King Ferdinand. The Duke him- 
self was suffering from an attack of fever and was almost 
delirious. Although the King and his minister received 
him kindly, La Tremoille a few days later read in the 
newspaper that he was accused of treason and held 
responsible for the rout at Civita Castellana. Considering 
the number of enemies he seems to have made at the 
Neapolitan court no one can be astonished at this charge 
being brought against him. No accusation could have 
been more serious. On a similar charge Great Britain 
only a few decades earlier had tried and condemned to 
death a distinguished admiral. From so uncivilised a 
power as Naples then was La Tremoille could expect no 
better treatment. 

The circulation of so terrible a report filled the Duke's 
relatives with horror. His only surviving brother, 



294 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Prince Louis de La Tremoille, was then living with 
Countess Bentinck at Hamburg. And in a letter to her 
grand-daughter in London the Countess writes ^ : 

" We have had a very unpleasant time here the last 
three or four weeks. . . . The Italian newspapers, copied 
by those of the Empire, told us cruel, humiliating news of 
the Due de La Tremoille, Prince de Tarente . . . whose 
brother. Prince Louis de La Tremoille, was, and still is, 
staying with me. The Duke is a general in the King of 
Naples' service, and was commanding the advance guard 
at the Battle of Calvi.^ The papers said that the chief 
cause of the loss of this decisive battle was the treachery 
and cowardice of the Duke. You can imagine that this 
was enough to strike us to the soul with horror. Two 
brothers ^ have already died like heroes in God's cause and 
the King's, and the one who is here has sacrificed himself 
for the last seven or eight years, and has given up such 
small means as were left him, has lost his health and has 
risked his life at least twenty times. He was absolutely 
petrified with horror. In fact, I heard he would not be 
able to survive the frightful idea of seeing the head of his 
house covered with shame." 

Later in this same letter, the Countess relates how the 
cloud of their sorrow lifted in an unexpected manner. 

" In spite of the enormous difficulty," she continued, 
" which the court of Vienna itself experiences in obtaining 
news from those Italian places, we were so fortunate as to 
receive two letters (one from a general oificer of first rank 
and in the same service) which not only completely efface 

1 On February 19th, 1799. The original letter is in the possession of 
Mr. Aldenburg Bentinck at Indio, in Devonshire. It is quoted by 
Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond in her " Life of Sophie, Countess Bentinck," 
II., 210 — 211. 

2 Presumably the same as Civita Castellana. 

" Antoine Philippe, Prince de Talmond, condemned to death by the 
revolutionary court-martial and executed. Charles Auguste, Dean of 
Strasbourg, guillotined at Paris. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 295 

that black calumny, but tell us that, far from being want- 
ing in courage and fidelity to his sovereign and benefactor, 
the Duke de La Tremoille in resisting those traitors who 
wished to give themselves up to the French did everything 
that the greatest zeal and valour could inspire, and nearly 
fell a victim himself, but escaped as by a miracle from the 
rage of those regiments who had been corrupted and 
seduced by the French. Neither he nor his colleague, the 
brave Chevalier de Saxe, could avoid their malicious and 
infernal slanders, the falsehood of which is now publicly 
proclaimed, and the King, his master, is informed of and 
touched by his fidelity, his innocence and his misfortune. 
We were transported with joy at the news, which gave new 
life to our amiable young Prince, who has made himself 
loved and esteemed by everyone and whose state was 
pitiable. I entreat you to tell all this to the Duke of 
Portland ; the Prince also urgently desires it, considering 
his esteem one of the greatest treasures in the world and 
knowing his brother's honour safe in the eyes of the 
majority when the Duke himself pronounces it to be above 
reproach." 

Unhappily, this rejoicing was premature. The evil 
reports continued ; and five months after she wrote this 
letter, the Countess enters in her diary : " The Prince de 
La Tremoille left to-day, having given me terrible news 
last night at midnight." ^ 

The " terrible news " to which the Countess referred 
concerned doubtless the doings of the Duke since the first 
appearance of that fatal slander. In a furious letter to 
Acton, in which he wrote that to be a private soldier in 
La Vendee was better than being general under such a 
minister, he resigned his commission. Then, dismissing 
his aide-de-camp and his servants, accompanied only by 
one Hungarian soldier, he left Rome, and by way of 

^ On July 4th, 1799. See Mrs. Aubrey de Blond, op. cit. II., 233. 



296 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Orbitello went to Florence. There his cousin, the Marquise 
de GroUier, and an old friend, the Bailli de Crussol, a 
former captain under the Comte d'Artois, afraid to receive 
one labouring under so terrible an accusation, sent him to 
the Vanini inn, where he was betrayed into the hands of 
the Neapolitan Minister, who had him arrested. 

After a brief confinement in the citadel of Leghorn, 
La Tremoille was taken to Palermo, whither the 
Neapolitan court had fled from the Revolution in Naples. 
In Sicily, writes the Duke in his Souvenirs, the King and 
Queen were inclined to be indulgent and to recommend 
him to the court of Denmark. But the malice of the 
" atrabiHous satrap " still pursued him. The only con- 
dition on which Acton would liberate him was that he 
should make good his bravado and become a soldier in 
La Vendee. With this object the Duke was permitted to 
embark at Trieste, from which port he travelled to 
Hamburg, en route for England, whence he was to cross the 
Channel into Normandy. At Hamburg La Tremoille met 
his brother Louis, who arranged his passage to England in 
company with General Frotte, who was likewise on his way 
to Normandy. Prince Louis, although convinced of his 
brother's innocence, had no belief in his judgment. He 
was always dreading that the Duke would perpetrate 
some new folly. To the life his eldest brother had 
previously led in England Louis referred as to a time when 
he " was completely crazy, with his diamonds, and his 
swords and his fatal dreams, when it was a pity for his 
reputation and his own good that England had no lettres 
de cachet or petites maisons." 

Now at length the Duke's misfortunes seem to have 
sobered him. And the rest of his life was comparatively 
uneventful. After two months' guerilla warfare in 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 297 

Normandy, during which his only adventure was to 
receive several masket shots in his clothes, he left the 
west when Buonaparte was attempting its pacification and 
went to Paris. There for two years he remained hiding in 
the house of a Swiss friend. Then, in 1803, as major- 
general he entered the service of the Grand Duke of 
Baden. 

Among Prince Louis' correspondence has been dis- 
covered an anonymous document, but apparently written 
by a Neapolitan officer, confessing that the Duke had 
been treated with gross injustice. " We annoyed him in 
every possible way," it runs, " because we were shocked 
to see a foreigner colonel of a regiment in which the first 
families in the kingdom in vain solicited a sub- 
lieutenancy." Then testifying to the Duke's charm of 
manner, the writer continues : " But he vanquished us 
by his personality. He proved to us that he knew more 
than we did, and we would now always gladly serve under 
his orders." 

Louis de La Tremoille, hoping that the Countess would 
make him her heir, continued at Hamburg until her death 
in 1801. But, although for years he had practically ruled 
her household, he had been unable to ingratiate himself 
sufficiently for her to bequeath him her property. " Her 
arrogance was inconceivable, her disposition of iron, and 
her heart of stone," wrote the Duke, and at her death his 
brother found himself homeless and with " nothing more 
than the emigrant's little bundle," with which he had 
arrived. Then he went to Paris in search of a rich wife, 
and in 1803 married Genevieve Adelaide, Comtesse de 
Langeron. 

There for a time we must leave him in order to trace 
the more tragic career of his twin brothers, the Prince de 



298 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Talmond and the Abbe de La Tremoille. The Prince we 
left in England, whither in the autumn of 1792 he had 
conducted his sister-in-law, the Princesse de Tarente, after 
her miraculous escape from the September massacres. 
After establishing Madame de Tarente at Richmond, Tal- 
mond probably spent the winter in this country ; for, while 
the royalist armies were in winter quarters, he could best 
serve their cause by endeavouring to procure from our 
government help for the royalist rising in Western France. 

Moreover, during his visit to England in the spring, 
Talmond's possession of a wife and son in France had not 
prevented him from following his eldest brother's example 
and falling a victim to the charms of an English gentle- 
woman. Her name is usually not mentioned. One 
authority-^ only refers to Talmond's mysterious mistress 
as " Lady Brighton." 

It was doubtless in January, 1793, that news of his 
King's execution tore the Prince from the pursuit of 
pleasure to fight for the cause in which he was to perish. 
The parting of the lovers was sad and solemn. In the true 
romantic manner they broke a ring in two halves, and, each 
taking one, exchanged a promise that whenever either 
sent the other a fragment of this ring the receiver should 
take it as a peremptory summons to the sender's presence. 

Then Talmond, quitting our shores for ever, passed 
secretly over to France and in disguise appeared on his 
hereditary dominions in Maine. 

But to effectively disguise himself was difficult for this 
handsome, striking, well-built Prince of twenty-five. He 
was soon recognised and imprisoned at Angers. His 
captors intended to take him to Paris for trial. But their 

1 Crdtineau Joly, " Histoire desGto^raux et Chefs Vendeens" (1838), 
225, who describes Lady Brighton as Talmond's fiancee. 




ANTOINE PHILIPPE PRINCE DE TALMOND 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 299 

delay in the accomplishment of this design permitted the 
Abbe de La Tremoille, who was in the capital, to intercede 
with the Convention on his twin brother's behalf. All 
that the Abbe could obtain, however, was a promise of the 
Prince's liberation in exchange for an undertaking to leave 
Western France. Of such a desertion Talmond was 
incapable. Consequently he remained a prisoner. And 
orders were given for his conveyance from Angers to 
Laval. On the road, by bribing his guards, Talmond 
contrived to escape and to make his way into La Vendee, 
to Chatillon, where a royalist council was then sitting. 

The commander of the royalist forces. La Rouerie, had 
recently died ; and possibly Talmond may have hoped 
to succeed him. But, although his good looks and his 
brave, generous and genial disposition won him popu- 
larity with the rank and file, the nobles commanding in 
the royalist army regarded him with jealousy and sus- 
picion. These gentlemen, many of them, had been among 
the 1,700 vassals who during I'ancien regime had owed 
allegiance to the Dukes of La Tremoille. And now they 
hesitated to take any step which might tend to restore 
the dominance of that family in Western France. It was 
impossible, however, to avoid giving Talmond some com- 
mand. And the son of an Angevin cobbler who had just 
been appointed general of cavalry resigned in favour of 
the Prince, in whose regiment he consented to serve as a 
lieutenant. 

Henceforth, whenever the hereditary gout permitted 
him to go into action, Talmond distinguished himself by 
dashing courage and unflinching fortitude. More than 
once his invincible ardour converted what would have 
been a disastrous defeat into a glorious victory. 

Yet all the heroism of the royahst troops was powerless 



300 FROM THE CRUSADES 

against the able commanders and the revolutionary zeal 
of the Sans-culottes. Defeat followed defeat, while La 
Vendee was wasted with fire and sword, and the houses of 
the loyal peasants burnt to ashes. Their occupants, 
homeless wanderers, whom no hardships could alienate 
from their devotion to the Crown, with their old men, 
their women and their children, attached themselves to 
the army for protection and followed it in its march. 

In a once fertile country transformed by hostile armies 
into a veritable desert, to feed this swelling multitude 
became increasingly difficult. And certain of the generals, 
among whom Talmond was one, proposed that the army 
with its throng of dependants should cross the Loire, into 
the less wasted province of Maine, where it was hoped a 
more effectual resistance might be organised. 

On this question there was a heated debate in the coun- 
cil of war. Talmond, impetuous, sanguine and totally 
lacking in sound judgment, eagerly supported the pro- 
posal to cross into Maine, where in his ancestral dominions 
of Laval he expected to do great things for the royal cause. 
The general in chief, the Comte de La Rochejaquelein,^ on 
the other hand, strongly opposed this project. Not only did 
it involve the abandonment of La Vendee to the Revolu- 
tionaries, but it entailed the enormously difficult enterprise 
of conveying across a broad river a whole army encumbered 
by hundreds of wounded, by thousands of old men, women 
and children, and by cart-loads of such household goods 
as they had succeeded in rescuing from the hands of the 
spoiler. In the council of war, however. La Roche- 
jaquelein was outvoted. The passage was resolved upon, 

1 Two La Rochejaquelein brothers distinguished themselves in the 
La Vendee wars : the Comte Henri, who, after Lescure's death, was 
elected Commander-in-chief, and the Marquis Louis, who held a 
subordinate command. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 301 

and to Talmond was confided the task of procuring means 
of transport. 

To provide sufficient boats for so vast a multitude was 
naturally impossible. Utter confusion reigned, panic pre- 
vailed, and the crossing of the river was a veritable sauve 
qui peiit. Madame de La Rochejaquelein, who, with her 
dying husband, the wounded M. de Lescure,^ was following 
the army, having watched the crossing from a hill near the 
river, has thus graphically described it in her Memoirs ^ : 

" The heights of St. Florent form a kind of semi-circle, 
from the foot of which a great level plain stretches down 
to the Loire, which is very wide at this place. Eighty 
thousand people crowded into this valley : soldiers, 
women, children, old men and wounded, all pell-mell, 
fleeing from fire and murder. Behind them they could see 
the smoke of their villages which the Republicans were 
burning. Nothing was to be heard save groans, cries and 
sobs. In this confused mass everyone was trying to find 
his relatives, his friends, his defenders. An unknown 
destiny awaited these people on the opposite bank. 
Nevertheless they were as eager to reach it as if they were 
certain of finding there the end of all their sorrows. A 
score of old leaky boats were incessantly crossing the river 
bearing crowds of fugitives to the opposite bank. Others 
tried to cross on horseback, while those left behind 
stretched out their arms to their comrades already landed, 
entreating them to come to their rescue. Far away on the 
other side of the river one could dimly discern and faintly 
hear another great multitude. A little island in the 
middle was covered with people. Many of us compared 
all this disorder and despair, this terrible uncertainty as 
to the future, this surging crowd, this valley with a river 
to cross, to the pictures of the terrible Day of Judgment." 

1 She married Louis Marquis de La Rochejaquelein after the death 
of Lescure, which took place soon after the crossing of the Loire. 

2 Ed. 1822, 248. 



302 FROM THE CRUSADES 

In a boat, rowed by a poor priest who was worn out 
with eight hours at the oar, Madame de La Rochejaquelein 
and her friends were taken across. When they landed, 
there on the bank, seated on the grass, were crowds of 
Vendeans waiting for their friends to come over. 

That the whole army with its vast throng of followers 
was eventually conveyed over the river speaks well for the 
Prince de Talmond's organisation. Once on the opposite 
bank, again at TaJmond's suggestion, the Vendeans 
marched towards Laval. The town was held by the 
Republicans. But the Prince was confident of being able 
to capture it and to raise the country. 

This march of the Vendean host was a marvellous 
sight. The vanguard of soldiers with a few cannon was 
followed by a disorderly crowd, women carrying their 
infants, old men supported by their sons, wounded barely 
able to drag themselves along, and with them artillery and 
carts and baggage wagons all mingled together and block- 
ing the road so that sometimes it was impossible to 
advance. After halting for a few hours at Chateau 
Gonthier, the Vendeans approached Laval, where the first 
of Talmond's anticipations was fulfilled, for the 15,000 
Republican defenders of the town fled before the royalist 
advance. But in the second of his calculations the Prince 
was disappointed : the surrounding country did not, as 
he had expected, take up arms for the royal cause. Only 
a few thousand peasants came in, young men from remote 
Breton villages, looking like savages with their long hair 
and goat-skin coats, as, waving sticks from which floated 
white handkerchiefs, they entered the town crying vive 
le roi I 

During the nine days that the Vendeans stayed at Laval 
more than one Republican attack was successfully 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 303 

repulsed ; and in these actions, which inflicted great loss 
on the enemy, Talmond was one of those who most 
brilliantly distinguished himself. 

Meanwhile, however, serious dissensions had broken out 
among the generals ; the royalist commanders held con- 
flicting opinions as to their next move. Some were for 
returning across the Loire, others for attacking Nantes. 
Talmond, feehng sure of Brittany, proposed the wildly 
impracticable project of a march on Paris. This sugges- 
tion was wisely combatted by M. de La Roche jaquelein, 
who urged that these western peasants would never be 
persuaded to go so far from home, and that with winter 
approaching — it was then the beginning of November — 
the march across France of so heterogeneous a multitude 
would inevitably be attended with disaster. 

Eventually, when on November 2nd, the Vendeans left 
Laval, the next object of their attack was uncertain. 
They marched, however, in a north-westerly direction and 
made their first important halt at Fougeres, that Breton 
town which three centuries earlier the Great Louis de La 
Tremoille had captured from turbulent nobles in rebellion 
against the King.^ 

At Fougeres the royalist generals came to an under- 
standing. Ever since the winter of 1792, when the nobles 
of the west had first formed a league for the support of the 
monarchy, they had been imploring help from England. 
It was to enforce this demand that in the following spring 
the Prince de Talmond had first visited England. Nothing 
very definite had been promised, but the French royalists 
lived in hope ; and now it was resolved to lead the 
Vendeans down to the sea shore, there to capture some 
port which might serve as a basis of communication with 

1 See ante, 60. 



304 FROM THE CRUSADES 

England, and as a dwelling-place for those thousands of 
women and children who encumbered the army. The 
port decided upon was Granville, on the Breton coast, not 
far from St. Malo. 

By way of Dol and Avranches the Vendeans proceeded. 
At Avranches all the non-combatants were left behind, 
while the army, some 30,000 strong, continued to Gran- 
ville. There, although at first the enthusiasm and valour 
of the besiegers won the day and carried the suburbs, 
finding that no adequate preparations had been made for 
an attack, the Vendeans were discouraged. The cannon 
on the ramparts drove them back, and although they 
continued before the town for thirty-six hours, they were 
ultimately forced to retreat and return to Avranches. 

On the night before the attack on Granville a romantic 
incident had happened to the Prince de Talmond. It will 
be remembered that on the eve of his final departure from 
England, the Prince had broken a ring and exchanged a 
solemn promise with a mysterious lady. On this night, 
there was brought to him at Avranches in a sealed packet, 
presented by two English sailors, the lady's half of the 
ring with a reminder of his promise and an announcement 
that an English ship lay off the Breton coast ready to 
convey the Prince to England. Talmond was on the horns 
of a dilemma. To at once keep faith with his lady and his 
King was impossible, to one or the other he must break 
his word : he chose to prove false to the lady ; and in 
prophetic words he wrote to her : "I have promised to 
defend the cause in which I have drawn my sword. I 
believe it to be right. To forsake my comrades-in-arms 
would be to break my word. Till death I shall share their 
labours and their dangers." While refusing to himself 
embark on the English vessel, Talmond determined to 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 305 

send on board three ladies who were with the army and 
who were anxious to reach Jersey. Two of them, Madame 
de Cuissard and Madame de Fay, were wives of emigrants, 
but it was for the safety of the third, Mdlle. Sidonie, 
Madame de Fay's fascinating sister-in-law, that Talmond 
was most concerned. Indeed, we suspect that Mdlle. 
Sidonie's attractions, in obscuring those of her English 
predecessor, had considerably facilitated the Prince's 
choice between loyalty to his King and faithfulness to his 
mistress. 

Before the Prince could carry out his project, however, 
the attack on Granville intervened, and it was not untU 
the night after Granville that Talmond and his fair friends 
could set out for the coast. Shortly before daybreak, they 
left Avranches accompanied by another officer, ten horse- 
men and a priest. But on arriving at the seaside they 
found that, owing to the lowness of the tide, the English 
ship could not put into shore, and that in order to embark 
it would be necessary for the ladies to ride some distance 
on horseback through the water. 

This they were afraid to do ; and, hearing of the 
approach of Republican soldiers the party turned round 
forthwith and rode back to Avranches, having been 
absent no longer than three hours. -^ 

But, during that short time, much had happened. An 
ex-gamekeeper, Stofflet, who commanded the Angevin 
and Poitevin part of the army, informed of Talmond's 
mysterious disappearance, rushed to the conclusion that 

1 Mme de La Rochejaquelein's " Memoires," ed. ciL, 301 — 303 ; 
Cretineau Joly, " Histoire des Generaux et Chefs Vendeens " (1838), 
225 — 6 ; the latter royalist, Catholic and inclined to favour Talmond. 
Other authorities (see Chassin, " La Vendee Patriote," III., 311, and 
note) state that Talmond intended to desert the army, that he offered 
a fisherman 100 louis-d'or and two of his best horses to carry him to 
Jersey, and that his brother officer, Beauvolliers, took with him the 
royalist war-chest. 

C.R. X 



3o6 FROM THE CRUSADES 

he had deserted ; immediately he despatched a body of 
troops to bring him back, and seized the horses and all the 
other possessions which the Prince had left at Avranches. 
When Talmond returned, without even having met the 
soldiers sent in his pursuit, he was naturally furious to 
find that so slanderous an interpretation had been put 
upon his absence. Nevertheless he magnanimously 
forgave Stofflet, realising, doubtless, that it was defeat 
and disappointment that had rendered the general so 
absurdly suspicious. 

Indeed the desperate straits to which their failure to 
take Granville had reduced the royalist leaders were 
enough to account for any error in judgment. The 
generals were at their wit's end to know what to do with 
these thousands of poor ruined folk whom they had led 
far from their native province, in the hope of finding some 
new home north of the Loire. The Vendeans themselves 
were clamouring to be conducted back across the river ; 
and the generals, at the end of their own resources, 
resolved to accede to this demand. 

During the month which elapsed between the defeat of 
Granville on November 14th, and the arrival of the 
Vendeans at the Loire on December 15th, the two principal 
events were the battles of Dol and Le Mans, in both of 
which Talmond played a prominent part. 

Their sorrowful retreat southwards the Vendeans sus- 
pended for a few days in order to rest in the little town of 
Dol. There at midnight they were attacked by a formid- 
able republican force and at first utterly routed. As 
day dawned, however, the Prince de Talmond was able 
to turn what threatened to be a crushing defeat into a com- 
plete victory. All through those hours of desperate fight- 
ing in the darkness, through the panic and confusion in 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 307 

the narrow streets of Dol, away to the right of their main 
body the Vendeans had heard continuous firing. This 
proceeded from a cannon which the Prince de Talmond 
was discharging. The gunners having abandoned it, the 
Prince and two brother officers themselves served it 
steadily all through the night. Luckily the morning mist 
which came up at daybreak enabled Talmond to deceive 
the enemy as to the strength of his forces. In reality, he 
had no more than 400 men ; but, inspired by their 
leader's valour, these 400 made such gallant stand that 
their fleeing comrades, inspired by their resistance, rallied ; 
and through Talmond's courage the tide of battle turned. 

" This battle did great credit to M. de Talmond. 
M. de La Rochejaquelein and all the army delighted to 
assure Talmond repeatedly that we owed him our salva- 
tion," writes Madame de La Rochejaquelein in her 
Memoirs, and she was no friend to the Prince.-^ 

But at Le Mans, Talmond's heroism, though again 
signally displayed, was powerless to avert the Vendean 
defeat before the walls of that town. 

Then followed an unsuccessful attempt to recross the 
Loire, and the separation of the commander-in-chief from 
his army. La Rochejaquelein, having crossed to the 
southern bank in order to take possession of some boats, 
was attacked by the Sans-CuloUes, and compelled to take 
refuge in the woods. 

After this disaster the Vendean forces began to break 
up. Those who were able returned singly or in groups to 
their homes across the river. Of the troops that remained 
together, after the loss of La Rochejaquelein, it was 
necessary to elect a commander. The Prince de Talmond 

1 P. 317. 

X 2 



3o8 FROM THE CRUSADES 

expected to be chosen. And when he found himself passed 
over for a mere country gentleman, he resolved to leave 
the Vendean army in order to raise a force of his own. 

Despite past disappointments, his hopes still centred 
in Laval. And he was making his way thither, when he 
fell in with a party of Republicans, who took him prisoner. 
There was nothing to indicate the prisoner's rank, and the 
Prince would probably have been liberated had not the 
daughter of an innkeeper, whom Talmond had assisted 
during the crossing of the Loire, recognised him, and cried, 
" Why, it is the Prince de Talmond ! " 

Taken before the Republican general, Beaufort, the 
Prince proudly acknowledged his identity. " Yes," he 
said, " I am the Prince de Talmond. Sixty-eight battles 
in six months fought against the Republic have made me 
familiar with death. A La Tremoille, son of the lords of 
Laval and Vitre, myself a Prince, I was bound to serve 
my King. By knowing how to die, I shall prove that I 
was worthy to defend the throne." 

The Sans-Culottes were highly elated by their capture 
of this " sovereign of Maine and Normandy," as they 
described Talmond, this " Capet of the brigands, worthy 
to figure on the same stage as his dead confrere." 

Pending the decision as to the place of his trial and 
execution, the Prince was imprisoned at Rennes. The 
winter dampness and cold of his Breton prison, intensify- 
ing the twinges of hereditary gout, reduced this brave 
soldier, who had never flinched before danger in the field 
or hardship on the march, to appeal to the pity of his 
captors. To the Republican general, Rossignol, Talmond 
wrote from Rennes the following pathetic, but dignified, 
letter ^ : " Citizen General, the enemy whom fate has 

1 See " Chartier de Thouai's," 378. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 309 

delivered into your hands appeals to your justice and 
humanity to deal with him a little less rudely than to 
confine him where he is at present, in a room without a 
fire, where he is dying of cold and damp. Whenever he 
wishes to procure anything for himself, he is met with a 
refusal which he is told is the General's order. He finds it 
hard to believe that such orders come from you, and that 
after having fought against him bravely and loyally, you 
can take pleasure in thus torturing him in his last moments. 
This very day he has been refused fish, in the fear, 
apparently, that he might endeavour to choke himself. 
Be assured. General, that such a design is far from enter- 
ing his head, and that, after having so often braved death, 
he knows how to await it with perfect composure. Be 
assured also that he will not try to escape, and that in 
this respect you may place more rehance on his brigand's 
word than on all the sentinels in the world. Be so kind 
therefore as to order him a fire and such food as he can eat 
and you may always count on the gratitude of one, who, 
after being your enemy, hopes, at least, to merit your 
esteem." 

During his cross-examination by the Republican 
general, Rossignol, at Rennes, Talmond was questioned 
as to his communications with England. His replies 
were so characteristic of his brave loyalty to the cause 
for which he was about to die, that they demand full 
quotation here : 

" Did you not," asked General Rossignol, the President 
of the court, " carry on a correspondence with England, 
who promised, at some time not specified, to send you 
men, victuals and ammunition and especially to collabo- 
rate with you in an attack on Granville ? " 

Talmond. " Yes." 



310 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Rossignol. " Then why did this attack fail ? " 

T almond. " Reports dishonouring certain of the 
leaders had been circulated in the royal army, which on 
that account failed to charge with its accustomed ardour. 
Moreover the English broke their word and physical and 
local causes prevented them from disembarking." ■*■ 

Rossignol. " If England broke her word to you then 
you must owe her ministers a grudge, and being quit of 
any obhgation to them, there can be no reason why, 
before you die, you should not serve your country by 
revealing the plots laid against her." 

T almond. " I am resolved to go to the grave bearing 
with me the esteem of all parties. You cannot have 
hoped that I should dishonour myself by such baseness. 
Whether they were friendly or hostile, we and the foreign 
powers served the same cause." 

A Poitevin emigre, who met Madame de Tarente in 
England, spoke truly when he said that her brother-in-law 
had replied to his accusers like a god. That same noble 
loyalty, high courage, and proud dignity which inspired 
these words the Prince de Talmond displayed to the end. 

Meanwhile the unhealthy condition of the Rennes 
prison had caused the outbreak of an epidemic, to which 
Talmond, exhausted by cold, hunger and illness rapidly 
succumbed. It was because the serious state of his health 
threatened to deprive them of their victim, that the 
Revolution authorities, denying the Prince's request to be 
tried at Paris, hurried him before the Revolution court- 
martial at Vitre. 

On the way thither the Prince became so iU that he was 
thought to be dying. At his trial the acute sore throat, 
which was one of the worst symptoms of the Rennes 
epidemic, hardly left him any voice with which to reply to 

1 This answer is vague, but thus is it reproduced by Chassin in 
" La Vendue Patrigte, III.," 545. 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 311 

his accusers. But such words as he was able to utter 
were bravely spoken. To the charge of treason Talmond 
replied : " Only if I had done otherwise than I have 
should I have deserved to be called a traitor." 

From the moment of his arrest the Prince must have 
known that he was foredoomed. The Vitre court con- 
demned him, " as one of the infernal horde of the brigands 
of La Vendee," to suffer the confiscation of all his property 
by the state, if that had not already been done, and to be 
delivered into the hands of the " Avenger of the People " 
— for with this proud title they styled the executioner — 
within four hours to be put to death on the public square 
of Laval. 

The brevity of the interval between the pronounce- 
ment of the sentence and its execution was due, no 
doubt, to the judge's fear lest a natural death should 
rob them of their valuable victim and avert so striking 
an example of popular vengeance as the capital 
punishment of this great noble in the very heart of 
his own domains. 

It was on January 27th, three weeks after his arrest, 
that Talmond was conveyed to Laval, that town which 
he had so sanguinely hoped to make the centre of a royalist 
revival. 

On the way the miserable horses, commandeered by the 
Sans-Culottes to draw their prisoner's conveyance, broke 
down ; and the condemned Prince must needs wait by 
the roadside until others had been procured. 

Arrived at the place of execution, the " Avenger of the 
People " seemed to hesitate to exact retribution from his 
princely prey. Whereupon Talmond adjured him not to 
delay, saying, " I have done my duty, now it is for you to 
do yours." 



312 FROM THE CRUSADES 

The Prince, by his wife Henriette d'Argouges, left one 
son, Leopold, a boy of seven, who at the time of his father's 
death was with his mother in Switzerland. 

When he grew up Prince Leopold was forced to serve 
in Napoleon's army, and by his display of hereditary 
courage won the Emperor's praise in the Russian 
campaign. In 1814, the Prince de Talmond joined his 
King, Louis XVIIL, in London. Thence, having been 
appointed colonel of a French regiment of dragoons, he 
returned with his sovereign to Paris. A year later, on 
November 7th, 1815, he died. Leopold, in 1812, had 
married Felicie de Durfort Duras, by whom he had no 
children. 

Prince Antoine's widow, Henriette d'Argouges, in 1819, 
married Auguste de La Rochejaquelein, younger brother 
of the famous La Vendee general. 

Six months after his twin brother's execution, the Abbe 
de La Tremoille, in a similar manner, suffered death at 
Paris. ^ 

The story of his accusation and trial in the Salle de 
I'Egalite of the Palais de Justice, by the Revolution 
Tribunal, throws a strong hght on the proceedings of the 
Revolutionists during those last days of the Reign of 
Terror. That was a time when no proofs of the guilt of the 
accused were demanded. " There never are any proofs," 
says the leader of the jury in " Les Dieux ont Soif." ^ In 
those days men judged with the heart not with the reason, 
and they always condemned ; for their hearts told them 
that it was only by the removal of every possible enemy 
that the Republic could endure. 

Thus it came about that the Abbe de La Tremoille and 

1 On June 15th, 1794. 
^ Anatole France, 191 1. 



ro THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 313 

forty other accused, all completely unknown to one 
another, -were thunderstruck to find themselve.i, hurried 
before the Revolution Tribunal, and embraced in the 
common charge of conspiring the death of Robespierre. It 
was not these innocent royalists, but the Republicans them- 
selves who, but a month later, were to plot the tyrant's 
death. Had only La TremoiUe's trial been postponed a 
few weeks, he with hundreds of other prisoners might 
have profited from the Incorruptible's sudden execution. 

At the Abbe's trial no attempt whatever was made to 
establish the formal charge under which he laboured. 
The cross-examination turned chiefly on the intercourse 
between La TremoiUe and his late brother Talmond, when 
the latter was passing through Paris on his way to La 
Vendee.-^ 

" You did not speak the truth when you said you had 
only once seen your brother." 

" I don't pretend to say I only saw him once," was the 
reply. " I saw him five or six times at the Opera ; and 
then I told him he was a great fool and that he would be 
arrested." 

It was not however on the charge of complicity with his 
brother, but with these forty persons, none of whom he 
had ever seen before, that the Abbe was condemned and 
harried to the scaffold, where he perished beneath the 
guillotine on June 15th, 1794. 

In the following year Prince Louis de La Tremoille took 
his brother's place in La Vendee, and for a while served 
under the Comte de Puisaye. 

After the Quiberon disaster, La Tremoille strongly 
advocated peace and helped to negotiate it. Prince 

1 See Wallon, " Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris," 
ed., 1881, IV., 198—200. 



314 FROM THE CRUSADES 

Louis' campaign in La Vendee followed by the Duke's 
three months' service there in 1798 closed for a while the 
La Tremoilles' participation in the warfare of the Revolu- 
tion period. Louis continued to act as the trusted agent 
of Louis XVIII. , both in Paris and other European cities. 
During the Hundred Days he was sent to the west of 
France to see if he could raise that region against 
Napoleon. But his efforts met with complete failure, and 
he was glad to accept from Napoleon's general, Foy, a 
passport into England. 

On the restoration of the monarchy after Waterloo, the 
La Tremoilles were reinstated in all the honours and 
emoluments which their ancestors had enjoyed. 

Prince Louis' first wife, the Countess of Langeron, 
having died, he married, in 1834, Augusta Murray, 
Countess of Dunmore. Three years later he died at 
Aix-la-Chapelle. Though the least interesting, he was 
probably the most level-headed of the Jour brothers. 

Meanwhile, the head of the house likewise had been 
twice a widower ; Emmannuelle de ChatiUon, as we have 
seen, died at St. Petersburg in 1814 ; three years after, 
the Duke married Marie Virginie, Comtesse de Saint- 
Didier, who, after having borne him two daughters,-^ died 
in 1829 j ii^ the following year La Tremoille took to him- 
self a third wife, Josephine-Eugenie- Valentine Walsh, 
Comtesse de Serrant. 

The Comtesse de Serrant, who belonged to the famous 
Irish Jacobite family of Walsh, was a great heiress. 
Through her marriage with the Duke there came into the 
possession of the La Tremoilles the magnificent chateau 
of Serrant, near Angers, which is at present the favourite 
family abode. The Comtesse de Serrant was the mother 

1 One became Princesse de Salm, the other Baroness of Wykerslooth. 




o 

< 

H 



TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 315 

of the late Duke, who, besides his invaluable publication 
of La Tremoille documents, has written two records of his 
mother's family. -"^ 

And here we must leave Charles Bretagne de La 
Tremoille. His varied adventures on the battlefield, in 
a Neapolitan dungeon, on the turf, at the gaming 
table, in the ball room, and in the alcove are at an end. 
At six and sixty, he is range, and about to settle down to 
domestic felicity. 

" There are two births ; " 
sang William Cartwright in his verses " To Chloe," 

" the one when light 
First strikes the new awaken'd sense ; 
The other when two souls unite. 
And we must count our life from thence : 
When you loved me and I loved you 
Then both of us were born anew." 

In such ardent words, had the Due de La Tremoille been 
a poet, he might have sung of his marriage with Valentine 
de Serrant ; for even the prose of his " Recollections " 
glows with the passion inspired by this attractive lady, 
to the happiness of his union with whom the Duke, in his 
" Recollections," has consecrated a rapturous paragraph. 
It forms a fitting close to the story of his chequered 
career. It may also afford a not inappropriate con- 
clusion to the history of his famous house. 

Referring to the uneventfulness of his later life, the 
Duke writes : 

" One day alone stands out in my memory, Sep- 
tember 14th, 1830, when to the friendship of poor 

1 One, translated into English under the title of " A Royal Family, 
Irish and French, and Prince Charles Edward," (1904), and another, 
" Mon Grand-pere, (Philippe Frangois Walsh) a la cour de Louis XV. 
et a celle de Louis XVI." (1904). 



3i6 FROM THE CRUSADES TO THE REVOLUTION 

Archambauld de Talleyrand Perigord, I owed the hand 
of Mdlle. Valentine de Serrant, that ravishing and angehc 
being to whom I am indebted for so much happiness. 
Here I must close, being incapable of adequately 
depicting that angel of goodness whom I shall adore 
until I draw my last breath." 



INDEX 



Abba YE, prison, 281, 286 

Abbeville, 80 

Abrantes, Duke of, 229 

Acton, Sir John, 289 & n. 2, 290, 

293. 295. 296 
Adelaide, Princess of France, 272 
Adigio, R., 290, 291 
Afryke, town of, 6 sqq. 
Agadingor, 8 
Agen, 78 

Agincourt, Battle of, 16, 23 
Agnadello, Battle of, 78 
Aigueperse, 24 
Aix-la-Chapelle, 

death of Prince Louis de La 

Tremoille at, 314 
Treaty of, 263 
Albany, Duke of, 88 
Albret, 

Charles d', marries Marie de 
Sully, Dame de La Tre- 
moille, 15 
Charlotte d', 69 & n., 70, 83 
Hotel d', 216 

Louise d', Duchesse de Valen- 
tinois, second wife of Louis 
II., Comte de La Tremoille, 

83,84 

Alcala, 241 

Alencjon, 

Francois Due d', 215 

Jean Due d', 31, 32 & n., 34, 

35, 39 
Alexander, Emperor, 13 
Alexander VI., Pope, 62, 63, 67, 

69, 76 
Alice (in " Peveril of the Peak "), 

122 
Almanza, Battle of, 247 



Alps, the, 62, 66, 71, 75, 76, 80, 88 
Altenburg, 

Anthony, Count of, 209, 210, 
277 

Charlotte Amelie, Countess of. 
See La Tremoille. 

Gunther, Count of, 209 
Alviano, General, 81 
Amboise, 251 

Georges d', 76 

La Tremoille estates of, 55, 56 

Marguerite d'. See Mar- 
guerite. 

Mme. des Ursins at, 244 
Amiens, 195, 283 

Ancre, Marechal d'. See Concini, 
Andalusia, 247 
Angelo, Michael, 220 
Angers, 97, 98, 201, 298, 299, 314 
Angouleme, 

Charles of, 83 n. ^ 

Francis of. See Francis I., 
King of France. 

Joan of, 83 w. 1 

John of, 83 n. ^ 
Angoumois, 60 
Anjou, 

Charles d', 38 

Marie d', 61 

province of, 38, 60 

Yolande d'. See Yolande. 
Anne of Austria, 119 

d'Egmont, logn. ^ 

of Saxony, no n. 

Queen of England, 208 
Antibes, 233 
Antwerp, 109 n. ^ 
Apeimines, the, 63, 64 
Ardres, 87 



3i8 



INDEX 



Argenson, 262, 263 

Argouges, Henriette de, Princesse 

de Talmond, 312 
Armagnac, 

Bernard, Count of, 17, 21 
faction of, 21, 24, 25 
Armand, Count, 285, 286 
Arragon, 

Charlotte of, 199 n. ^ 

Ferdinand of, 63 

Frederick of, 87, 155 n., 198, 

199 n. 1 
house of, vi. 
Arras, 5, 6, 13 
Artois, 

Charles, Comte d', 279, 284, 

288, 296 
Robert, Comte d', 2, 12 
Arundel House, 179 
Asturias, the Prince of, 119 
AthoU, John, Marquis of, 166, 167 
Aubign^ 

Agrippa d', 99, 100, 106, 113 
d'. Secretary of La Princesse 

des Ursins, 239 

Fran^oise d', Marquise de 

Maintenon, 214, 216, 222, 

223, 233, 234, 241, 242, 243, 

244, 245, 249, 251, 253, 254 

Aubigny, d', 62 n. 

Aubry, Renee Julie, Duchesse de 

Noirmoustier, 215 
Auch. See Jean de La Tremoille, 

Archbishop of, 78 
Augereau, General, 291 
Aunis, 90 
Auron, R., 28 
Auvergne, 

Jeanne d'. See Jeanne. 
Marie d', 24 
province, 24, 57, 58 
Auxerre, 33, 197 
Ave Maria, convent of, 121 
Avignon, 87, 264 
Avranches, 304, 305, 306 
Azala, daughter of the King of 
Tunis, 9 



Babylon, 140 

Bac, Rue de, 63, 282 

Baden, Grand Duke of, 297 

Baggerley, the Rev. Humphrey, 

161 
Bais, 257 n. ^ 
Bajazet (surnamed Ildemin), 11, 

12, 13 
Balkans, the, 11 
Barberini Palace, 220 
Barbette, Hotel de, 22 
Barcelona, 235, 236, 245 
Barege, 181 
Barrois, George de Craon's estates 

in, 49 
Barthelemy, Edouard, xi. 
Baschi, Perron de, 62 n. ^ 
Basingstoke, 286 
Bastille, the, 85, 120 
Bavaria, Electoral Prince of, 

227 
Bayard, 51 n. 
Bayonne, 241, 253 
Beauce, 20 
Beaujeu, Anne de, 56, 57, 59, 

60 
Beaulieu, General, 290 

knight of, 29 
Beaumaris, 165 
Beaune, wine of, 19 
BeauvoUiers, 305 n. 
Bedford, 

Francis, Duke of, 276 & n., 

286 
John, Duke of, 33, 34 
town of, 284, 286 
Bellin, the Comte de, 116 
Benaize, R., i 
Beneventum, Count of, 234 
Benjamin, Sieur, 176 
Bentinck, 

Charlotte Sophie, Countess, 
211 & n. 1, 277 & n. 1, 294 
& n. 1, 295, 297 
Count, 211 
Bernard, Count of Armagnac. 

See Armagnac. 



INDEX 



319 



Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo, 220, 

221 
Berrie, principality, 55 n. ^ 
Berry, 

appanage of Jeanne de France, 
70 

duchy, 75 n. 2 

forests of, 53 

Jean, Duke of, 23 

La Tr^moille lands in, 38, 43^ 

51 
Berwick, 

Duke of, 225, 239, 240, 247 

& n., 264 
town, 169 
Bethune, Maximilien de. Marquis 
de Rosny, Due de Sully, 112, 
116, 118, 179 
Bidan, 62 
Billard, Jean, 86 
Bingen, 288 
Birch, General, 163 
Blecourt, French Ambassador at 

Madrid, 229, 230 
Blois, 39, 69 n., 105 n. ^ 
Bliicher, General, 81 
Bohemia, 70, 128 

Elizabeth, Queen of. See 
Stuart, Elizabeth. 
Bois-le-Duc, 199 
Bolingbroke, Lord, 250, 251 
Bolton-le-Moors, 148, 149, 161 
Bommiers, chateau, 43, 51, 52, 53, 

55,68 
Bordeaux, 119 
M. de, 168 
Borgia, Csesare, 69 & m., 83 

Pope. See Alexander VL 
Bom, Bertrand de, 24 
Bouchet, Jean, xi., 52, 55, 58, 59, 
61, 74 n., 77, 78 n. 1, 81 n., 82, 90 
Bouillon, 

Antoinette de, 260 n. 1 
Cardinal de, 225, 226 
Elisabeth, Duchesse de. See 

Nassau. 
Emmanuel Theodore, 259 



Godefroi, Due de, 2 

Henri, Due de, 112 & n. ^^ 

"3 

Marie Hortense de. See La 

Tremoille. 
Boulogne, 283 
county of, 24 
Jeanne, Countess of La Trd- 

moille, 23, 24, 23 
siege of, 60 
Treaty of, 92 n. ^ 
Bourbon, 

Charlotte de, third wife of 

William the Silent, 109 & 

n. ^ 
Constable of France, 81, 87, 

88, 89 
Gabrielle de. Countess of La 

Tremoille. See Gabrielle. 
Henri I., Prince de Conde, 95 

sqq. 
Henri II., Prince de Conde, 92, 

loi, 103, 11453'^. 
John I., 23 
Louis, Due de Montpensier, 

130 n. 
Louis II., Due de, 6 sqq. 
Louis Joseph, Prince de 

Conde, 287, 288 
Louis, " the Great Conde," as 

Due d'Enghien, 121 & n., 

176 
as Prince de Conde, 184, 185, 

187, sqq., 194. 197 
Marie de, 130 n. 
the family of, 87 
the house of, in Spain, 214, 

244, 245, 246, 248 
Bourdonnais, Rue de, 274 
Bourges, 25, 28 
Bournisseaux, 

Berthre de, 93 
Mme. de, 56 
Brabant, Duchess of, 10 
Bracciano, 

Duchess of. See Talleyrand 

Marie Anne de. 



320 



INDEX 



Bracciano — continued. 

Flavio, Duke of, second hus- 
band of La Princesse des 
Ursins, 218, 219 & n. 1, 
221 sqq. 
Livio Odescalchi, Duke of, 224 
Bradlaugh, Regicide, 171 
Brandenbourg, Frederick William, 

Elector of, 182, 183, 196 
Brandon, 

Charles, Duke of Suffolk, 

130 n. 
Eleanor, 130 m. 
Mary, Duchess of. See Mary. 
Bran tome, 104 
Braschi, Palazzo, 220 
Brighton, Lady, 298 
Brill, 177, 178 
Brittany, 173, 197 

Anne, Duchess of, 68 sqq. 
Barons' War in, 59 
duchy and province, 76^.^, 303 
estates of, 185 
Francis, Duke of, 40 
John, Duke of, 32, 37 
marches of, 60 
Broceliande, 133 & m. 
Brouage, 95, 97 
Bruges, 26, 27 
Brussels, 44, 118 
Bueil, Jean de, 37, 38 
Bulkeley, friend of Prince Charles 

Edward, 264, 266 
Burgos, 246, 247 
Burgundy, 

Duchess of, 4 

duchy and province of, 79 

Dukes of, 

Charles the Rash, 44, 45, 47 

& n., 48, 54 
John the Fearless, 11, 12, 

17 sqq. 
Philip the Bold, 4, 5, 6, 11 

13. 14. 17 
Philip the Good, 25, 26, 27 

33> 34. 36, 38. 44 
faction of, 17, 18, 21, 24, 36 



Georges de Craon conquers, 

54 
governs, 48 
La Tremoille defends against 

the Emperor, 88 
La Tremoille lands in, 3, 4 w- 
Louis II. de La Tremoille. 
Governor of, 77 
Burie, 257 n. ^ 
Burke, Edmund, 276 n. ^ 
Butchers, Corporation of. See 
Cabochiens. 

Caboche, Jean, 18 

Cabochiens, faction of, 18 sqq, 

Caesar, Julius, 66 

Calais, 23 

Capua, 63 

Caroline, Queen of Naples, 289 & 

n. 2, 292, 296 
Carrara, quarries of, 64 
Cartagena, Alvaro di, 90 
Carthage, 6, 66 
Castile, 

Admiral of, 244 
Isabella of, 63 
the estates of, 237 
Catalonia, 245, 247, 249 
Catherine, Empress of Russia, 

265 
Cecil, 

Anne, 130 n. 

William, Lord Burleigh, 130 n. 
Chalais, 

Adrien Blaise, Prince de. See 

Talleyrand. 
Marie Anne, Princesse de. 
See Talleyrand. 
Chambery, 278 
Chambord, 261 
Chamillard, French War Minister, 

245, 247, 248 
Champagne, 

Georges de Craon, Governor 

of, 46, 47 
the Prince de Tarente's cam- 
paign in, 191 



INDEX 



321 



Champnol-l^s-Dijon, 4 
Chancey, Monsieur, 282 
Chandieu. See Zamariel. 
Chanteloup, chateau, 251 
Chantilly, 117 
Charenton, 187, 188 
Charles VI., King of France, 3, 4, 6, 
10, II, 13, 17, 19, 22, 25 n. 
as crowned King, 25 n., 33 

sqq. 
as Dauphin, 17 n., 25 & n., 
sqq. 
Charles VIII., King of France, 
as Dauphin, 47, 53, 54 
as King, 56 sqq. 
Charles IX., King of France, 56 n. ^ 
Charles I., King of England, 130, 
131, 136, 137, 148, 150, 151, 153, 
154, 156, 159 n., 171, 177 sqq., 
233 n. 
Charles II., King of England, 

after Restoration, 165, 170, 

171 
as nominal King, 160, 174, 

192, 194, 260 
as Prince of Wales, 153, 182 
Charles V., Emperor, 
as Emperor, 91 
as King of Spain, 84, 226 
Charles II., King of Spain, 227 

sqq. 
Charles, Archduke of Austria, 227, 

228, 231, 244, 249 
Charles, Earl of Derby. See 

Derby. 
Charles Gustavus, King of Swe- 
den, 193, 196 
Charles, Prince de Talmond. See 

Talmond. 
Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau, 
Duchesse de Thouars. See 
Nassau. 
Charlotte de Bourbon, William the 

Silent's wife. See Bourbon. 
Charlotte de La Tremoille, Prin- 
cesse de Conde. See La Tre- 
moille. 

C.R. 



Charlotte de La Tremoille, Coun- 
tess of Derby. See La Tre- 
moille. 
Charpaignes, Gouges de, 24 
Charroux, Abbe of. See Talmond, 

Frederic Guillaume, Prince de. 
Chartres, 

Regnault de. Archbishop of 

Reims, 33 
town of, 107 n. ^ 
Chateau-Gonthier, 302 
Chatelet, prison, 18 
Chatellerault, 107 sqq. 

Dukes of. See Talmond, 
Princes of. 
Chatillon, 

Duchess of, 275, 282 
Emmanuelle de. See Tarente, 

Princesse de. 
town of, 299 
Chsitillons, the, 124 
Chelsea, 154 

Chenonceaux, chateau, vi. 
Chester, 131, 135, 148, 162 n. ' 
Chevreuse, Duchesse de, 185 
Chinon, 31, 37, 38, 44 
Chissenhall, Captain, 141 
Christian, William, 123, 164, 171 
Churchill, Sarah, Duchess of Marl- 
borough, 214 
Civita Castellana, Battle of, 393, 

394 »«■ ^ 
Claude, Queen of France, 52' 
Clement VII., Pope, 10 
Clermont, Bishop of. See Char- 

paigne, Gouges de. 
Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, 

130 n. 
Clisson, Olivier de. Constable of 

France, 10, 11 
Coblentz, 284 
Coetivy, 

Charles de, 83 w. ^ 
Louise de. See Louise. 
Coligny, 

Admiral, x,, no, in «. 2 
Louise de. See Louise. 



522 



INDEX 



Colonna, 

house of, 218, 219 
Prospero, 80 

Commines, Philippe de, 44, 55 «. ^ 

Compiegne, 

Charles VII. enters, 34 
Joan of Arc taken at, 36 
negotiates with Burgundy, 34, 

35 
Prince de Tarente arrested at, 

195 
Concini, Mar6chal d'Ancre, 119, 

120 & n. 1 
Conde, 

Charlotte de La Tremoille, 
Princesse de. See La Tre- 
moille. 
H6tel de, 118, 187 & m. 
house of, vi., 121 
Princes of. See Bourbon. 
Rue de, 118, 187 n. 
Constantinople, siege of, 12 
Conti, Prince de, 102 
Copenhagen, 202, 207 
Corisande (" La Belle "), 103 
Coudray, tower of, 37 
Courtenay, Sir Peter, 4 
Coutras, Battle of, 100, 105 
Crane, Sir Richard, 149 
Craon, 

chateau, 14, 49 

Georges, Seigneur de. See 

La Tremoille. 
house of, 14 w. 
Crefy, Battle of, 3 
Creneaux, Hotel de, 85 
Cr^py-en-Valois, skirmish at, 34 
Cr^quy, 

Charles de. Prince de Poix, 

259 
Madeleine de, Duchesse de 
La Tremoille. See La Tre- 
moille. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 158, 171, 173, 

192, 222 
Cronstadt, 292 
Crusades, v., i, 2, 6, 10, 14 



Crussol, the Bailli de, 296 
Cuissard, Mme. de, 305 
Culloden, Battle of, 261, 262, 263 
Cuto, General, 289 

Danube, R., 12 

Dauphine, 29 

Delft, 126 

Denmark, George, Prince of, 207, 

208 
Derby, Countesses of, 

Charlotte de La Tremoille. 

See La Tremoille. 
Helen de Rupa, as Lady 
Strange, 159 
Derby, Earls of, 

Charles Stanley, as Lord Strange, 

134 

marries Mdlle. Rupa, 159 
negotiates with the Par- 
liament, 159, 160 
runs away from home, 
151 sqq. 
as Earl of Derby, 

after the Restoration sits 

in House of Lords, 

169 

in disgrace at court 

through execution of 

William Christian, 171 

inherits La Tremoille 

temperament, 169 
quarrels with his mother, 

167, 168 
taken prisoner at Nant- 
wich, 168 
James Stanley, 

as Earl of Derby, 136 sqq., 177 
as Lord Strange, 113, 129 
sqq. 
William Stanley, 129, 130 & n., 

135 
Dieppe, 176 
Dijon, 14, 77, 79 
Dol, 304, 306, 307 
Dole, Seigneur de Craon defeated 
at, 49 



INDEX 



323 



Dorchester, Marquis of. See 
Pierrepoint, Henry. 

Duckenfield, General, 163 

Du Deffand, Mme., 261, 262, 265, 
271, 272 

Dunbar, 159 

Dun-le-Roi Chateau, 28 

Dunmore, Augusta Murray, Coun- 
tess of, Princesse de La Tre- 
moille, 314 

Durfort Duras, Felicia de, Prin- 
cesse de Talmond, 312 

Edinburgh, 158 

Edward IV., King of England, 60 
Egeria, Prince Charlie's. See Tal- 
mond, Marie Jablonowski, Prin- 
cesse de. 
Elizabeth of France, daughter of 
Henry IV., 119 
Queen of England, 95 
Queen of Spain. See Farnese. 
Ely 3ishop of, 85 
Enghien, Due de. See Bourbon, 

Louis de. 
EscoUes, castle, 58 
Espinay, 257 

Estaples, Treaty of, 60 n. 
Este, Beatrice de, 74 
Estrees, 

Abbe d', 239, 240 
Cesar, Cardinal d', 217, 218, 
238, 239 
Etampes, 69, 187 
Eugene, Prince, 248 

Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 142, 143, 

145, 154, 156 
Farmer, Captain, 139 
Farnese, Elizabeth, Princess of 

Parma, Queen of Spain, 252 
Fay, Mme. de, 305 
Ferdinand, King of Naples, 289, 

293. 296 
Ferrand, Mdlle., 269, 270 
Feuillants, monastery of, 280 
Figueras, 234 



Fitzherbert, Mrs., 287 
Flanders, 5, 6 
Florence, 62, 64, 296 
Fontainebleau, 117 
Fontaine-Frangaise, Battle of, 

106 
Fornova, Battle of, 66, 76 
Fougeres, 60, 70, 303 
Fox, Charles James, 276 
Foy, General, 314 
Franche, Comte, 46 
Francis I., King of France, 52, 80 

sqq. 
Frankfort, 211 
Frederick the Great, 252 

Elector Palatine, 129, 137 «. 
Froissart, xi., 6, 9 
Fronde, the, v., vi., 173, 184 sqq., 

215 
Frotte, General, 296 

Gabrielle de Bourbon, Countess 
de La Tremoille, 52, 57, 58, 59^ 
69 n., 82, 83, 84, 90, 94 
Gallo, Marquis del, 288, 289 
Gambarani Bridge, 291 
Garigliano, R., 77 n. 
Gen^ay, chateau, 28, 30 
Geneva, 13, 93 
Genevieve, Adelaide. See Lange- 

ron. Countess of. 
Genfevre, Mont, 62 
Genoa, Gulf of, 63 

town of, 64, 78, 254 
George, Prince of Denmark. See 

Denmark. 
George, Prince of Wales, 284, 286, 

287 
Georges, first Count of La Tre- 
moille. See La Tremoille. 
Georges de La Tremoille, Seigneur 
de Craon. See La Tr6- 
raoille. 
de La Tremoille, Seigneur de 
Jonvelle. See La Tre- 
moille. 
Gerard, iii n. ^ 

Y2 



324 



INDEX 



Gevaudan, 36 

Giac, Pierre de, 27, 28, 38 

Gille de Rais, 16, 17, 25 

Gondi, Hotel de, 118 

Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, 76, 

77 
Gonzague, Anne de (known as " La 

Palatine "), 185 
Gonzala, 77 

Gournay, Amelot, Marquis de, 243 
Gramont, Due de, 242 
Grandson, Battle of, 46 
Granville, 304, 305, 306, 309 
Gravesend, 178 
Gressart, Perrinet, 26, 27 
Gr&ve, Place de, 188 
Griffenfeld, suitor of Charlotte 

Amelia de La Tremoille, 207, 

208 
Grimm, 265 

GroUier, Marquise de, 296 
Guadalaxara, 252 
Guenaud, Radegonde, 3 
Guernsey, 98, 99, 104 
Guines, 257 
Guise, 105 M. 2 
Guisnes, Captain of, 85 
Guyenne, 

Duchesse de, 28 

Duke of (Dauphin Louis), 17 

& n., 19, 20, 21, 22, 28 
Hotel de, 20 
province, 76, 186 

Hague, the, 124, 125, 126, 128, 

129, 130, 134, 149, 177, 193. 199' 

227, 228 
Halsall, Edward, 141 
Hamburg, 294, 296, 297 
Hamilton, Lady, 293 
Hampton Court, 154 
Hanau Muntzenburg, Countess of, 

183 & M 1 184 
Hannibal, 66 
Harcourt, Comte d', 228 sqq., 240, 

241 
Harrach, Comte d', 228, 229, 230 



Henri de Bourbon, Prince de 

Conde. See Bourbon. 
Henri III., King of France, 94, 
96 & M., loi, 104, 105 & n. 2, 
214 
Henri IV., a descendant of Marie 
de Sully, 15 

as King of France, centralises 
the French Government, 38, 
105, 107, & n. 1, 109, 186 
sqq. 
as King of Navarre, 95, 96, 
99, 100, loi, 102, 103, 105, 

215 
Henrietta Maria, 

as Duchess of Orleans, 233 n. 
as Queen Dowager, 171 
Queen of England, 130, 131, 

135. 137, 153. 155. 173 
Stanley. See Stanley. 
Henry II., King of England, 56 
Henry v.. King of England, 16, 23, 

25 
Henry VI., King of England, 34 
Henry VII., King of England, 60, 

70, 131 
Henry VIII., King of England, 

84 
Hericourt, Battle of, 46 
Hesse Cassel, Emilie, Princess of, 
as Princesse de Tarente, 183, 

193, 194, 199, 201, 202 
as the friend of Mme. de 

Sevigne, 203 — 211 
house of, vi. 

William V., Landgraf, 183 
his son, Landgraf, 196 
Hesse PhiHpstal, Prince of, 293 
Holland, Colonel, 147 
Hungary, 70 
Hutchinson, Colonel, 141 

Ile Bouchard, 

Catherine de 1', Countess of 

Tonnerre, 27, 28, 43, 44 
Chateau de 1', 43, 44. 90 
domain of, 132 



INDEX 



325 



He de Rhe, 55 n. '- 

Innocent XII., Pope, 223, 228 

Ireton, Lieutenant- General, 156, 
171 

Isabelle, 

Queen of England, 11 
Queen of France, 22, 23 

Issoudun, chateau, 27 

Ivry, Battle of, 106 

Jacqueville, Helion de, 20 
James I., King of England, 120, 

179 
James II., King of England, 
as Duke of York, 170, 207 
as King in exile, 225, 231 
James Stanley. See Derby, Earls 

of. 
James the Old Pretender, 231, 255, 

260, 263 
Jean, Dauphin, died 1416..17 n. 
Jeanne, Queen of France, 67 — 70 
Jeanne d'Auvergne, 

wife of Georges, Comte de La 
Tremoille, 23, 24, 25, 27, 
49 
Jeremiah, 140 
Jersey, 305 n. 
Jerusalem, 

Jeanne II., Queen of, 10 
Yolande, Queen of. See 
Yolande. 
Joan of Arc, 

relations with Georges de La 

Tremoille, 31 — 36 
relieves Orleans, 186 
saves France from the Eng- 
lish, 26, 30 
John the Fearless. See Burgundy, 

Dukes of. 
Jonson, Ben, 135 
Jonvelle, Sieur de, 33, 37 n. 
Conte de, 257 n. 2 
Georges de La Tremoille, 
Seigneur de. See La Tre- 
moille, Georges. 
Joseph, Emperor, 249 



Jouarre, 109 «. ^ 
Joyeuse, Due de, 100 
Julius II., Pope, 78 

Kingston, Lord, 136 
Kirkcudbright, 159 
Knowsley, 135, 154, 156, 158, 165, 
168, 169, 171 



Lab^, Louise, 114 n.^ 
La Brosse, Jacques de, 89 
La Charite, 26, 35 
La Fayette, 

Gilbert de, 25 

Marie Madeleine de. See La 
Tremoille. 

Rene Armand Mottier de, 259 
La Garnache, chateau, 105 
La Grange, Jean de, 64 
Lamballe, la Princesse de, 282 
Lambert, General, 169 
Lang, Andrew, 262, 263, 265 sqq, 
Langeron, Genevieve Adelaide, 
Countess of, wife of Prince 
Louis de La Tremoille, 297, 314 
Languedoc, 193 
Lannoy, Charles de, 88 
Lanti, 

Louise Angelique, Duchesse 
de, 212, 215, 217, 221 

the Duke of, 255 
Laon, Bishop of, later Cardinal 

d'Estrees. See Estrees. 
La Roche-du-Mayne, 52 n. * 
La Rochefoucauld, 206 
La Rochejaquelein, 

Auguste de, 312 

Henri, Comte de, 300 & n.^ 

Louis, Marquis de, 300 & »., 

307 
Mme. de, 301 & n., 302, 305 «., 

307 
La Rochelle, 36, 98, 99, 109, 114 
Lathom, the Lady of. See La 

Tremoille, Charlotte, Countess 

of Derby. 



326 



INDEX 



Lathom House, 131, 135, 137 sqq., 

156, 164, 169, 170, 260 
La Tour d'Auvergne, Marie de, 
Duchesse de La Tremoille. See 
La Tremoille. 
La Tour-Landry, Antoinette de, 

212 
La Tremoille, 

duchy of Thouars and La Tre- 
moille, 
creation of, 93 

its descent to females in 
default of heirs male, 2, 93 
family of, 

archives of, viii. sqq. 
biography of a La Tremoille, 

xi. 
decline, vi., vii. 
earliest known history of, 

ix. & n. 
height of their wealth and 

influence, vi. 
most recent biography of a 

La Tremoille, xi. 
Paris mansion of (Hotel des 
Creneaux), 85 & n. 2, 274 
8c n.^ 
persistent dominance of, vi. 
seizure of lands by Revolu- 
tion Government, viii., 278 
the La Tremoille women, 2 
their rcle in French history, v. 
market town of, i, 257 
spelling of name of, v. & n. 
Seigneurs de, i, 257 
Guillaume II., 2 
Guy I., 2 
Guy v., 3 
Guy VI., 3, 17 

Ambassador in England, 3 
dies at Rhodes, 14 
dominions of, 3 
fights against the English, 3 
fights in the Crusades, 6 — 10 
marries Marie de Sully, 3 
other warlike expeditions, 
II — 14 



refuses to be constable, 11 
taken prisoner at Nicopolis, 

13 

tilts with Peter de Courte- 
nay, 4 

with Philip of Burgundy 
prepares to invade Eng- 
land, 5, 6 
Pierre, i 

Thibaud or Imbaud, 2 
Counts of, 

Georges, First Count, 

appropriates the King's 
taxes, 22 

attempts to seize his wife's 
lands, 25 

becomes Dauphin's chief 
favourite, 29 

character of, 16, 17 

created Count, 33 

death at Sully, 41 

does not bequeath moral 
defects to descendants, 
except, perhaps, Cathe- 
rine de Medicis, 42, 43 n. 

fights against the English, 
21 

friendship with the Dau- 
phin, 17, 19 

goes on an embassy to 
Bruges, 27 

his fall from power, 37 — 40 

imprisons Gouges de Char- 
paignes, 24 

joins Dauphin after Treaty 
of Troyes, 25 

joins Queen Isabelle's court, 
22, 23 

liberated, 23 

marries Jeanne d'Auvergne, 

23 
ill-treats her, 24 
her death, 24 
murders Pierre de Giac, 27 

28 
obesity of, 37, 42, 48, 54, 

59 



INDEX 



327 



La Tr6moille — continued. 
Counts of — continued. 

Georges, First Count — con- 
tinued. 

quarrels with Constable 
Richemont, 29 

quarrels with the Butchers, 
20 

relations with Joan of Arc, 
31—36 

rules as Councillor-Cham- 
berlain, 26, 29, 30, 32, 
66 n. 

schemes to marry Catherine 
de rile Bouchard, 27 

taken by Perrinet Gressart, 
26 

taken prisoner at Agin- 
court, 23 
Louis I., Second Count, 42, 

43. 49, 50, 51. 53. 55 
Louis II., Third Count, 

a witness to Louis XII. 's 

contract with Anne of 

Brittany, 69 
Anne's dislike of him, 70, 

71. 75 

appointed King's Chamber- 
lain, 60 

Battle of Marignano and 
death of his only son, 81, 
82 

betrothes his niece to Mont- 
morency, 84 

biography by Bouchet, xi., 
52 

builds mansion in Paris, 
and there entertains 
English ambassadors, 85 
& n., 86, 274 & n.'" 

captures Ludovico Sforza, 

73. 75 

commands against re- 
bellious nobles in Brit- 
tany, 60, 303 

delivers Paris from the 
English, 87 



dies at the Battle of Pavia, 

89 
embassy to the Pope, 61, 62 
endows churches at 

Thouars, 57 
escorts Mary Tudor at 

Abbeville, 80 
established in possession of 
lands and offices by 
Louis XII., 66 
established in possession of 
lands and offices by 
Francis I., 80 
father's death, 55 
first Italian campaign, 62 — 

66 
fourth, fifth and sixth 

Italian campaigns, 78 

funeral progress through 

Italy and France, burial 

at Thouars, 90 

Governor of Burgundy, 77 

guards French coast against 

the English, 76 
last Italian campaign, 88 — 

90 
lieutenant-general in Eng- 
lish wars, 60 
marries Gabrielle de Bour- 
bon, 57, 58 
marries grandson to Anne 

de Laval, 87 
negotiates Louis XII. 's 
divorce from Jeanne de 
France, 67 — 68 
obtains restoration of for- 
feited estates, 50, 56 
on Gabrielle's death, 
marries Louise d'Albret, 
6g & n., 83 — 84 
on the Field of the Cloth of 

Gold, 86 
page atLouis XL's court, 54 
returns to France ill, 76, 77 
romance, 55 

runs away from home, 52, 
53, 176 



328 



INDEX 



La Tremoille — continued. 
Counts of — continued. 

Louis II., Third Count — con- 
tinued. 
second Italian campaign, 

72—75 
seventh Itahan campaign, 

80—82 
third Italian compaign, 76 
treats with the Swiss in 

Burgundy, 79 & n. 
victory of Novara, 80 
youth at Bommiers, 513 — 5 
Francis, fourth Count, 80, 82, 
83 n. ^ 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 
92, 155 n. 2, 198, 212, 213 
Dukes of Thouars, also styled 
Dukes of La Tremoille, 
vii., I 
Louis III., first Duke, 91 sqq., 

130 n., 199 n. 1, 212 
Claude, second Duke, 92, 122, 

130 n., 137 n., 176 n. ^, 

199 n. 1 
at Battle of Coutras, 100, 

105 
at Battles of Ivy, Fontaine- 

Fran^aise, sieges of Paris 

and Rouen, 106 
becomes a Protestant, 99 
birth, 93 
classifies family archives, 

viii. 
financial difficulties, iii 
fiees to Guernsey, 98 
happiness of married life, 

no, 112 
illness and death, 113 
joins Protestants, 95 
marries Charlotte of Nassau, 

109, no 
one of the twelve peers of 

France, 107 
power, vi. 
presides over negotiations 

for the Edict of Nantes, 

107 — 109 



quarrels with Henry of 

Navarre, 99, 100 
relations with his sister 

Charlotte, 102 — 104 
serves in Catholic army, 94 
services rendered to the Pro- 
testant cause, 104, 105 
upbringing, 94 
will, 113, 114 
Henry, third Duke, viii., 186, 

199 n. 1, 257 
abjures Protestantism, 114, 

132, 174 & n. 
bedridden with gout, 200 
birth, 112 & n. ^ 
character, 125 
claims kingdom of Naples, 

155 & n. 2 
corresponds with his aunt 

Charlotte, 121 
financial embarrassments, 

neglects to pay his sister's 

dowry, 132, 133 
life as a country gentleman, 

173 
marries Marie de La Tour 

d'Auvergne, 128 
renounces his dukedom and 
peerage in favour of his 
son, 175, 195 & n. 
travels, 125 & n., 126 
writes to Henrietta Maria 
on Oliver Cromwell's 
death, 173 & n., 174 
Henry Charles, fourth Duke. 

See Tarente, Prince de. 
Charles Belgique Hollande, 
fifth Duke, 193, 257, 258, 
259 & n., 260, 277 
Charles Louis Bretagne, sixth 
Duke, viii., ix., x., 258 sqq., 
277 n. 
Charles Armand Rene, seventh 

Duke, 260, 277 n. 
Jean Bretagne, eighth Duke, 
258, 273, 274, 277 & n., 278, 
284 



INDEX 



329 



La Tremoille — continued. 

Dukes of Thouars — continued. 
Charles Bretagne, ninth Duke, 
as Due de La Tremoille, 
financial embarrass- 

ments, diplomatic mis- 
sions, visits to England, 
284—287 
as Prince de Tarente, 274 
& n. 3, 275, 276, 277 n., 
278, 279, 284, 285 
his recollections, 275, 276, 
285, 288, 290, 291, 296, 
316- 
in Neapolitan army, and 
relations with Sir John 
Acton, 288, 296 
in Normandy and La Ven- 
dee, 297, 314 
marriages, 275, 314, 315, 
316 
Louis Charles, tenth Duke, 
viii., X., xi., xii., 57 n., 315 & 
n. 1 
Duchesses of, 

Charlotte Brabantine, wife of 
Duke Claude. See Nassau. 
Emilie of Hesse Cassel, wife of 
Duke Henri Charles. See 
Hesse Cassel. 
Emmanuelle de Chatillon, 
first wife of Duke Charles 
Bretagne. See Tarente, 
Princesse de. 
Jeanne de Montmorency, wife 
of Duke Louis. See Mont- 
morency. 
Josephine Eugfenie Valen- 
tine Walsh, third wife of 
Duke Charles Bretagne. 
See Walsh. 
Madeleine de Crequy, wife of 
Duke Charles Belgique, 259 
Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne, 
wife of Duke Henry, viii. & 
n., 56, 133, 151, 155, 157 
sqq., 165, 167, 168, 171, 174, 



177, 186, 196 197, 199, 200 

257 
Marie Genevieve de Durfort, 

first wife of Duke Jean 
Bretagne, 259 
Marie Hortense de Bouillon, 
wife of Duke Charles Ar- 
mand Rene, 259 
Marie Madeleine de La 
Fayette, wife of Duke 
Charles Louis Bretagne, 259 
Marie Maximilienne de Salm- 
Kerbourg, second wife of 
Duke Jean Bretagne, 259, 
273, 276 sqq., 288 
Anne Charles Frederic de. See 

Talmond, Prince de. 
Armand de, 174 
Caroline de, 279 

Charles Auguste, Abbe de, and 
Dean of Strasbourg, viii., 
274 & n. 2, 275, 298, 299, 312, 

313 
Charlotte Amelie or Emilie de. 
Countess of Altenburg, 184 & 
n. 2, 193 & n. ^ 198, 201, 202, 
207 sqq., 277 
Charlotte de, Princesse de 

Conde, 92 
biography of, xi. 
birth, 93 

changes of religion, 99, 114 
imprisoned on charge of 

murdering Conde, 100 — 103 
last years, death and burial, 

121 
leader of a faction in Paris, 

118 — 120 
marriage, 99 
quarrels with her son's tutor 

and with Sully, 115, 116 
wooed by the Prince de Cond6, 

95—99 
Charlotte de. Countess of Derby 
{" the Lady of Lathom "), 
action on the outbreak of 
civil war, 136, 137 



330 



INDEX 



La Tremoille — continued 

Charlotte de, Countess of Derby 
— continued. 

at Knowsley during the Com- 
monwealth, 165 

betrayal by Christian and 
return to England, 164, 165 

biographies of and literary 
allusions to, xi. & n. ^, 122 & 
n., 126 n., 164 

birth, descent and upbringing, 

113, 123 126, 127, 130 71. 

careers of her younger sons, 

167 
correspondence with her 

sister-in-law, 128, 129, 151, 

155. 157 sqq-' 165—167. 

168, 196 
death at Knowsley, 171 
defends Lathom House, 98, 

122, 142 — 148 
early married life in England, 

130 — 132 

hears of her husband's execu- 
tion, 161, 164 n. 

her will and burial, 171, 172 

holds out in Isle of Man 
against the Parliament, 163 

in London after the Restora- 
tion, 169^ — -171 

in Scotland, 159 

life at court, 135 

life in the Isle of Man, 151 — 

165 

marriages of her daughters, 
166 

motherhood, 134, 135 

negotiates with parliamen- 
tarian envoys, 141 

petitions Parliament on her 
husband's behalf, 153 — 156 

prepares for the siege of 
Lathom House, 138, 139 

quarrels with her eldest son, 
152, 153, 167, 168 

receives Rupert at Lathom, 
149, 150, 260 



receives the Prince de Tarente 

in London, 177 
sends her son Edmund to 

France, 167, 171 
suitors and marriage to Lord 

Strange, 128, 129, 130 
visits Charles I. at Hampton 

Court, 154 
visits Holland, 134 
writes to Prince Rupert, 137, 

143. 144 
Elizabeth de, Duke Claude's 

daughter, 113, 125 
Elizabeth de, Duke Henry's 

daughter, 174 
Fr6d6ric de, Comte de Laval, 

113, 126, 133, 134, 153 &n., 155 
Frederic Guillaume de. Abbe 

de Sainte-Croix, later lieu- 
tenant-general, 202 & n., 260 

& n. 1 
Georges de. Seigneur de Craon, 

42 sqq. 
Georges de, Seigneur de Jon- 

velle, 52, 84 
Guillaume de, brother of 

Seigneur Guy, 6, 7, 8, 11 
Henriette de, 202 
Jacqueline de, 84 
Jacques de, 52 
Jean de. Archbishop of Auch 

and cardinal, 52, 78, 82 
Joseph Emmanuel de. Abbe de 

Noirmoustier and cardinal, 

216, 225, 255, 256 
Louis Maurice, Comte de Laval, 

174 
Louis Stanislas Kotzka, Prince 

de, 274 & n. ^, 275, 277 & n. 1, 

288, 294 sqq., 313, 314 
Marie Anne de, Princesse des 

Ursins. See Talleyrand, 

Marie Anne de. 
Marie Charlotte, 1 74 & nn. ^ &^, 

193. 198 
Marie Sylvie Brabantine, 202 
Robert, 212, 215 



INDEX 



331 



Lausanne, 291 
Laval, 

Anne de, wife of Francis, 
Comte de La Tremoille, 87, 
155 n. 2, 198, 199 n. 1 
chateau of, vi., viii., 299, 308, 

311 
Counts of, 257 and passim 
estates of, 155, 300, 302, 303 
Frederic, Count of. See La 

Tremoille. 
Louis Maurice, Count of. See 
La Tremoille. 
Lavallee, Pean de, 43, 44 
La Vendee, viii., 276, 277, 283, 295, 

299, 300, 312, 313, 314 
Lear, King, 175 
Le Brun, 268 
Leghorn, 296 
Legoix, family of, 18 
Le Mans, Battle of, 306, 307 
Leopold, Emperor, 227 
Le Sage, 180 

Lescure, Commander of Royalists 
in La Vendee, 300 n., 301 & «. ^ 
Lespinasse, Mdlle. de, 265 
Les Rochers, 203, 205, 207 
Leyden, 126, 149 
Liege, 17, 45, 175 
Limburg, 250, 251 
Liniferes, chateau, 68 
Liris, R., 62 
Liverpool, 158 
Loches, chateau, 75 n. 
Lodi, 

battle, 290, 291 
town, 88, 89 
Loire, R., 25, 30, 251 

crossing and recrossing of, by 
the Royalist rebels in 1793, 
300 — 302, 303, 306, 307 
Joan of Arc's victories on, 3 1, 
32, 35 
Longueville, 

Due de, 174 

Duchesse de, 121, 185 & w. * 
L'Orme, Philibert de, 133 



Lorraine, 

Duke of, Rene II. See Rene, 
province, 46, 47, 264, 265, 269 
the maid of, 30 
Loudun, 90, 119, 257 
Louis VII., King of France, 2 
Louis IX., St., King of France, 2, 6 
Louis XL, King of France, 38 
as Dauphin, 39, 40, 67 
as King, 44 sqq., 53 sqq.. 
66 n., 67 
Louis XII., King of France, 

as Due d'Orleans, 59, 60, 66, 

67, 80, 79 
as King, 61 n., 67 sqq. 
Louis XIII., King of France, 119, 

173 
Louis XIV., King of France, 38, 

173, 195. 197. 198, 214, 219, 222, 

224, 225, 227, 228, 230 sqq., 237. 

239 sqq., 248 sqq.. 253, 254, 

258 
Louis XV., King of France, 261, 

263, 264, 267 
Louis XVI., King of France, 279, 

286, 287 
Louis XVIII. , King of France, 

289 n. 1, 312, 314 
Louis, Dauphin, died 1415. See 

Guyenne, Due de. 
Louis de La Tremoille. See La 

Tremoille. 
Louis, Due d'Orleans. See Or- 
leans. 
Louise de Coetivy, mother of 

Francis, Comte de La Tremoille, 

82, 83 n. 1 
Louise de Coligny, x. & n. 3, 106 

&«. 3, no & «. 1, III & nn. 1 & 2, 

112, 113, 123, 124 
Louise Julienne, William the 

Silent's daughter, 137 n. 
Louise of Savoy, 52, 83 n. ^, 84 
Louville, Marquis of, 234, 236 
Luci. See Ferrand, Mdlle. 
Lude, the Count of, 92 
Luneville, 265 



332 



INDEX 



Luxembourg, 187, 188, 190, 270, 

271, 274 
Lyons, 74, 75, 90, 114 & «. 2, 254 
Lys-Saint-Georges, castle of, 75 



Macaulay, 235 

Mack, General, 293 

Maestro, 217 

Maine, 298, 300 

Maine-et-Loire, x. 

Maintenon, Mme. de. See 
Aubigne, Fran9oise de. 

Malaquais, Quai, 257 

Malo, Andrea di, 90 

Malplaquet, Battle of, 249, 258 

Man, the Isle of, 129, 137, 138, 143, 
150, 151, 156 sqq., 163, 164, 165, 
168 

Manchester, 136, 138, 140, 147 

Mansourah, Battle of, 2 — 12 

Mantua, 284. See Gonzaga, Mar- 
quis of. 

Marans, 55 n. ^, 105 

Marcellus, theatre of, 220 

Marchegay, Paul, x. 

Marguerite d'Amboise, Comtesse 
de La Tremoille, 49 

Marguerite de Valois. See Valois. 

Maria Fagniani, Comtess of Yar- 
mouth, 284 

Maria Feodorovna, Empress of 
Russia, 292 

Marie Adelaide, Duchess of Bur- 
gundy, 232, 233, 234 

Marie Antoinette, 273, 278 — 
281 

Marie de Cleves, 95 

Marie Jablonowski. See Talmond, 
Princesse de. 

Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne. 
See La Tremoille, Duchess of. 

Marie de Montauban, wife of 
Georges de Craon, 49 

Marie de Sully. See Sully. 

Marie Leczinski, Queen of France, 
261, 271 



Marie Louise, Queen of Spain, 232 
sqq., 237, 241, 242, 244, 246, 248, 
251, 252 

Marignano, Battle of, 81 

Marlborough, Duke of, 248 

Marlet, Leon, xi., 122 & n., 126 n. 

Marly, chateau, vi., 243, 248, 254 

Marsille, 257 «. ^ 

Marston Moor, Battle of, 139 n., 

150 
Martindale Castle, 122 
Mary of Burgundy, daughter of 

Charles the Rash, 47 n. 
Mary Stuart, Princess of Orange, 

177, 192, 194 
Mary Tudor, Queen of France, 80 

130 M., 131 
Mathelyn, 14 
Mauleon, 55 n. 1, 257 n. ^ 
Maurepas, 264, 272 
Maurice, 

Elector of Saxony, iion. 
of Nassau. See Nassau. 
Maximilian, Emperor, 

as Archduke of Austria, 47 «., 

59 
as Emperor, 71 
Maximilien de Bethune, Marquis 

de Rosny. See Bethune. 
Mayenne, 

Duke of, 105 

Georges de Craon's estates in, 
49 
May erne. Sir Theodore Turquetde, 

159 & n. 
Mazarin, Cardinal, vi., 184 sqq., 

190, 192, 194 sqq. 
Medicis, Catherine de, 105 n.^, 
116, 133 
descent from Georges de La 
Tremoille, 42, 43 n. 
Medicis, Marie de, iii, 116, 118, 

119, 128 
Melle, 

bishopric of, 26 n. 
fortress of, 93 
Melun, 22 



INDEX 



333 



Mercoeur, Duke of, 95 

Meun, castle, 28 

Michelet, 80, 86 

Milan, 61, 71, 78, 79, 81, 119 

duchy of, 61, 63, 70, 71, 88 

duke of, 61, 70 
Mirabello, 

chateau, 88 

park, 89 
Miranda, Francisco di, 90 
Modena, Queen of England, in 

exile, 222, 260 
MoliSre, 206 
Molyneux, Lord, 137 
Monaco, Prince of. Ambassador at 

Rome, 225, 226 
Monk, General, 169 
Montagu, George, 271 
Montaigne, 127 n. 
Montargis, 37 
Montauban, 109 
Mont Cenis, 79 
Montagu, chateau, 80 
Montereau, 27 «. 1, 121 
Montespan, Mme. de, 265 
Montesquieu, 261, 264, 266 
Montfort, 257 n. ^ 
Montmorency, 

Anne de, 84, 93, 130 n. 

Charlotte de, Princesse de 
Conde, 117, 118 

Henry de, Marechal Damville, 
117 n. 2 

house of, vi. 

Jeanne de, Duchesse de La 
Tremoille, 93, 94, 96 sqq., 
103 & n., 116, 130 n. 
Montpellier, 100, 109 
Montpensier, 

Anne de, " the Great Made- 
moiselle," 185 & w. 2, 186, 
187, 188 

castle of, 57, 58 

Counts of, 57, 63 

Dukes of. See Bourbon. 
Montresor, chateau, 37 
Morat, Battle of, 46 



Morel, Mme. de, 114 n. 

Moret, 117 

Mortara, 72 

Moussy, Regnaud de, 82 

Munster, 

Bishop, 199 

Council, 155 
Musgrave, Sir Philip, 164, 165 



Nancy, Battle of, 45, 47, 48 
Nantes, 59, 60, 70, 303 

Edict of, 107, 108, 109 
pacification of, 104 
revocation of Edict, 94, 211, 
258 
Nantwich, Battle of, 168 
Naples, 2, 62, 63, 70, 288, 289, 296 
Bay of, 62 
crown of claimed by, 

Charles VIII., King of 
France, and his successor, 
61, 155 n. 2 
Dukes of La Tremoille and 
Princes of Tarente, 155 
& n. 2, 198, 288 
Kings of, 61, 87, 289, 293, 296 
Queens of, 10, 289, 292, 296 
state of, 75, 76, 79 
Napoleon, ix., 5, 90, 91, 289 n. ^, 

297. 312,314 
Nassau, 

Charlotte Brabaritine, 
Duchesse de La Tremoille, 
X. & n. ^ 109 sqq., 121 sqq., 
128 sqq., 133, 137 n., 176 w. ^ 
Frederick Henry, Prince of 
Orange, 176 & n.^, 177, 180 
182, 183 
Henry, Count of, 179 
house of, vi. 
Louisa Henrietta of, 177, 181, 

182, 183 
Maurice, Prince of Orange, 

no, 125 
William II., Prince of Orange, 
177, 178, 180 



334 



INDEX 



Nassau — continued. 

William III,, Prince of Orange. 
See William III., King of 
England. 
Navona, Piazza, 220 & n. ^ 
Neufchatel, lake of, 46 
Neuve-des-Capucins, Rue, 281 
Nevers, Comte de. See John the 

Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. 
Newcastle, 153 
Nice, 278 

Nicopolis, Battle of, 12, 13, 14 
Noailles, 

Adrien Maurice de, 223 
La Marechale de, 223, 225, 
240 
Noirmoustier, 

Abbe de. See La Tremoille, 

Joseph Emmanuel. 
Antoine Frangois, Due de, 

212, 215, 253, 255, 256 
Claude, Baron de, 212, 213 
Francois, Marquis de, 212, 

214 
Louis, Due de, 197, 212, 213 
Louis, Marquis de, 212 
Novara, 72, 73, 75, 78, 80 



Odescalchi, Don Livio, 224 

Oldenburg, 211 

Oldenzeel, no 

Olonne, Georges, Comte d', 212, 

213 
Olyferne, Duke of, 8 
Orange, 

Maurice, Prince of. See 
Nassau. 

William the Silent, Prince 
of. See William. 

William VII., Prince of, 49 
Orbitello, 296 
Orleans, 

Anne d', 233 

Charles, Due d', 16, 19, 21, 

23 

family of, 67 



Gaston, Due d", 185, 186, 188, 

189, 190 
Joan of Arc's relief of, 31, 186 
Philippe, Due d', 227, 253, 

254 

siege of, 30 

" the Great Mademoiselle " 
at, 186 

town of, 22 
Ormond, Duke of, 237 
Ormskirk, 172 
Orpe, Miss, 133, 134, 154 
Orsini, 

estates of, 224, 255 

palace of, 220, 221 

the house of, 218 n. ^, 219, 221 
Orsova, 12 
Ostend, 286, 288 
Oudenarde, Battle of, 258 



Palatine, La. See Gonzague 
Anne de. 
Charlotte Elisabeth, Prin- 
cesse de, 254 
Pallavicini, the, 13 
Palermo, 296 
Paris, 

besieged by Huguenots, 106 
besieged by Joan of Arc, 34 
taken by Charles VII., 38 
threatened by the English 
and defended by La Tre- 
moille, 87 
Parma, 

Duke of, 105, 106 

Princess of. See Farnese, 

Elizabeth, 
town of, 63 
Pasquino, 

palace, 221, 222, 224, 225, 

255 
the tailor, 220 
Pathay, Battle of, 32 
Patroclus, 220 

Paul I., Emperor of Russia, 292 
& n. 



INDEX 



335 



Pavia, 

Battle of, 89, 90 
campaign of, 88 
siege of, 88, 89 
town of, 62, 88, 90 
Peel Castle, 164 
Peronne, Louis XI. taken prisoner 

at, 45 
Pescara, General, 88 
" Peveril of the Peak," xi., 122, 

164 
Philip II., King of Spain, 95, 226, 

227 
Philip III., King of Spain, 119 
Philip IV., King of Spain, 228, 
229, 233 sqq., 241, 249, 244, 246 
sqq. 
Philip the Bold. See Burgundy, 

Dukes of. 
Piacenza, 63 
Pibrac, 126, 136 
Picard, 120 n. 
Picquigny, Treaty of, 45 
Piennes, 

Due de, 286 
Duchesse de, 285, 286 
Pierre Fort, fortress, 46 
Pierrepont, Henry, Marquis of 

Dorchester, 166 
Pisa, 63 

Pisani, Marquis de, 114, 115, 116 
Plessis, College of, 274 
Plessis-du-Parc, 48 
Plessis-les-Tours, 48 n., 56 
Plessis-Mornay, M. du, 99, 113 
Plombieres, 279 
Poggibonsi, 63 
Poitiers, 

Battle, 3 

Bishop. See La Tremoille, 

Jean, 
town, xi., 59, 82, 91, loi n. ^, 

105 
Poitou, xii., I, 3, 26, 28, 39, 40, 

55 n. 1, 60, 91, 93, 95, 107. 108, 

173. 185, 195, 197 
Pontarlier, 46 



Portland, 

Duke of, 295 

Earl of, 211 
Portocarrero, Cardinal, 223, 228 

238 
Portugal, 70 
Praguerie, the, 39 & n. 
Puisaye, Comte de, 313 
Pyrenees, 231 

Treaty of, 197 

QuEENSBERRY, the Marquis of, 

283, 284 n. 1 
Quiberon, 313 

Radetzky, General, 290, 291 

Radzivill, 180 & «. 

Rais, Gille de, 16, 17, 25 

Rambouillet, 

Hotel de, 204, 205, 216, 221 
Marquise de, 114, 116 
Salon de, 114 & n.^ 

Reaux, Tallemant des, 115 & «. ^^ 

133 
R^gnault. See Chartres, Reg- 
nault de. Archbishop of Reims. 
Reims, 13 

Charles VII. crowned at, 
25 n., 33 
Rene II., Duke of Lorraine, 46, 

47. 48 
Rennes, 204, 257 n. ^ 308, 309, 310 
Retz, Cardinal de, 187, 215 
Rhimbergue, 180 
Rhodes, 

Grand Prior of, 14 

Seigneur Guy dies at, 14 
Richard II., King of England, 11 
Richelieu, 

Cardinal, vi., 114, 132, 274 

Due de, 285 
Richemont, Count of, 23, 27 & n. 

28, 29, 32 & n. 1, 37, 38, 39 
Richmond, 283, 286, 298 
Rigby, Colonel, 139, 145, 146, 147, 

148, 156 
Robespierre, 313 



336 



INDEX 



Rocroy, 191 
Rohan, 

house of, 185 
Mdlle. de, 181 
Rome, 62, 63, 76, 78 

Duke Charles Bretagne de La 

Tremoille at, 284, 293, 295 

La Princesse de Talmond at, 

270 
La Princesse des Ursins re- 
sides at, 217 — 233, 255 — 
256 
Rosny, Marquis de. See Bethune, 

Maximilien. 
Rossignol, General, 308, 309, 310 
Rouen, 36, 106 
Rouhet, 94 
Roussillon, 245 
Royan, Yolande Julie, Marquise 

de, 212, 215 
Ruitz, Marshal, 291 
Rupa, Helen de. See Derby, 

Countess of. 
Rupert, Prince, 137 Sen., 143, 144, 

148, 149, 150, 181, 260 
Rushen, Castle of, 157, 161, 164 
Rutter, the Rev. Mr., 147, 152, 163 
Ruvigny, Henri de, Lord Galway, 

247 n. 2 
Ryswick, Treaty of, 199, 214, 123 

St. Angelo, Bridge of, 219 
St. Antoine, 

Battle of the Gate of, 186, 
187, 190 

Gate, 197 

Rue, 20 
St. Aubin-du-Cormier, Battle of, 

60, 66, 74 
St. Bartholomew, massacre, 110 n.. 

Ill n. 2 
St. Cloud, 187, 188 
St. Cyx, 254 
St. Denis, 

cathedral, 3 

fair, 23 

faubourg, 187 



St. Didier, Marie Virginie, Com- 
tesse de, second wife of Duke 
Charles Bretagne de La Tre- 
moille, 314 

St. Dominique, Rue, 265 

St. Florent, 301 

St. Germain, 114, 115, 117, 222 
231, 260, 265 

St. Honore, Gate, Joan of Arc at, 

34 
St. Jacques Tower, 18, 21 
St. James's Palace, Court, 131 

286 
St. Jean d'Angely, loi, 102, 103 

& n. 
St. John's, Prior of, 85 
St. Joseph, Convent of, 265, 267 
St. Laon de Cursay, 57 
St. Malo, 98, 304 
St. Maur-les-Fosses, 116 
St. Medard, chapel, the La Tre- 
moille burying place, 57 
Saint Paul, Hotel de, 13 
St. Peter's at Rome, 11, 220 
St. Petersburg, 292, 314 
St. Pierre le Moustier, 35 
St. Simon, 229 & n. 1, 234, 239, 

240, 243, 244 
St. Yon, family of, 18 
Sainte-Beuve, 214, 242, 256 
Sainte-Croix, the Abbe de. See 

La Tremoille, Frederic Guil- 

laume. 
Sainte-Marthe, 
Louis de, viii. 
Pierre Scevole de, ix. 
Sc6vole de, viii. 
Sainte Menehould, 119 
Saintes, loi 
Saintonge, 55 n. ^, 60, 91, loi n. ^, 

186 
Salm, Princesse de, 314 m. 
San Giovanni, fort, 62, 65 
Sand, Georges, 121 
Saracens, the, 2, 7, 8, 9 
Sarragossa, 237 
Sarzana, 63, 64 



INDEX 



337 



Sauves, Charlotte de Semblangay, 
Mme. de, wife of Fran90is de 
Noirmoustier, 214, 215 
Savoie, Madeleine de, 130 
Savonarola, 63 
Savoy, 277, 278 

Dowager Duchess of, 236 
Victor Amadeus, Duke of, 
227, 232, 233 
Saxe, the Chevalier de, 293, 295 
Saxe Weimar, Bernard of, Duke of 

Jena, 174, 198 
Scarron, Mme. See Aubign6, 

Frangoise de. 
Schomberg, Gaspard de, 108 
Scone, 160 

Scott, Sir Walter, xi., 122, 164 
Sedan, 126 

Selwyn, George, 284 n. 
Serrant, 

chateau, x., 314 

Louis Charles, Due de La 

Tremoille, buried at, 57 
Valentine, Comtesse de. See 
Walsh. 
Sesia, R., 72 
Sevigne, Mme. de, x. & n. 2, 183, 

203 sqq., 218 
Sforza, Ludovico {II Mora), 61 
as Duke of Milan, 63, 71 sqq., 
78 
Shrewsbury, 168 
Sicily, 

King of, 70 
Queen of, 30 
Sidonie, Mdlle., 305 
Sienna, 63 

Sigismund, King of Hungary , 11,12 
Sobieski, 

Clementine, wife of the Old 

Pretender, 255, 256, 261 
house of, vi., 271 
Jean, 255 
Soissons, Comte de, 102 
Solms, Emilie of. Princess of 

Orange, 182, 192 
Somerset House, 179 

C.R. 



Somme, R., 45 

Sophie, Countess Bentinck. See 

Bentinck. 
Sorbonne, the, 274 
Sorel, Agnes, 38 
Spa, 192, 285 
Spar, Baron, 193 
Spoleto, 218 
Stanislas, King of Poland, 260 n. *, 

264, 265 
Stanleys, the, vi., 130 

Amelia, 134 n., 154, 158, 159, 

162 n. 1, 166, 167 
Catherine, 134 8cn., 154, 158, 

159, 162 n. 1, 166 
Charlotte, 134 & n. ^ 
Earls of Derby. See Derby. 
Edward, 134 «., 162, 167, 169, 

171 
Henrietta Maria, 134 n., 161, 

162, 166 
Henry Frederic, 134 n. 
James, 134 n. 
Papers, 134 n., 152 & n. 
William, 134 »., 162, 167, 169, 
170 
Stenay, 191 
Stockport, 148 
Stofflet, 305, 306 
Strafiord, Earl of, 156, 166 
Strange. See Derby, Earls of, and 
La Tremoille, Charlotte, Lady 
Strange. 
Strasbourg. See La Tremoille, 
Frederic Guillaume, Canon of, 
and Charles Auguste, Dean of. 
Stuart, 

Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, 
129 & n., 137 n., 149, 180, 
194 
Prince Charles Edward, 261 
sqq. 
Sully, chateau, 3, 22, 24, 32, 35, 41, 
112 
Comte de, 6, 8, 9 
Due de. See B6thune, Maxi- 
milien. 



338 



INDEX 



Sully — continued. 

Marie de. Dame de La Tre- 
moille, 3, 14, 15, 17 
Susa, pass of, 79 
Switzerland, 70 
Swiss Cantons, 46 

mercenaries, 64, 65, 71, 72, 
73. 79, 81 



Tabouret, honour of occupying, 
accorded to La Tremoille prin- 
cesses, 2, III, 198 
Taillebourg, castle, 95, 97, 98, 99, 
186 
Counts of, 

Charles Belgique, 257 n. 2 

Charles de Coetivy, 83 n. 1 

Talbot, Richard, Earl of Tyr- 

connel, 222 
Talleyrand, 

Adrien Blaise de. Prince de 

Chalais, first husband of La 

Princesse des Ursins, 216 

Marie Anne de, Princesse des 

Ursins, 

authorities for the life of, 214 

n. 
builds chateau on the Loire, 

251 

character of her relations with 
the King and Queen of 
Spain, 234, 235, 236, 238 

coldly received by Louis XIV., 
leaves France, resides at 
Genoa, 254 

conducts Marie Louise to 
Spain, 233, 234 

contributes to the establish- 
ment of the Bourbons on 
the Spanish throne, 214, 
228, 230, 231, 238 

correspondence of, xi. 

corresponds with, 

Lord Bolingbroke, 250, 251 
Mme. de Maintenon, 245, 
246, 248 



Mme. de Noailles, 223, 225, 
232, 234, 245 
descent, parentage and birth, 

212, 214, 215 

driven from Spain by the new 
Queen, Elizabeth, 251 — 253 

early married life in Paris, 216 

end of her first period of power 
and residence at Versailles, 
240 — 244 

endeavours to obtain inclu- 
sion in the Treaty of 
Utrecht, 250 — 251 

events leading to her fall, 238, 
240 

excites the jealousy of minis- 
ters and ambassadors at 
Madrid, 238 

her boundless ambition, 218, 
250, 251 

her policy saves Spain for 
the Bourbons, 245 

her Roman Salon, 219, 221, 
222 

importance of, in her family 
and in European history, 

213, 214, 223, 226, 231 

is present at State councils, 

237 

lawsuit with her second hus- 
band's heir, 224 

lives in Italy, moves in 
Roman society, 217 

marriages, 216, 218, 219 

relations with the French 
ambassadors at Rome, 225, 
226 

return to Spain, 244 

returns to Rome, figures at 
the court of the Old Pre- 
tender, dies at Rome, her 
will, 255, 256, 260 

schemes to marry the King of 
Spain to Marie Louise of 
Savoy, and to get herself 
appointed Camerara Major, 
232, 233 



INDEX 



339 



Talleyrand — continued. 
Marie Anne de — continued, 
unofficial representative of 
France at Rome, 223, 224 
visits France, 222, 223, 260 
Perigord, Archambauld de, 316 
the Abbe, 216 n.^ 
Talmond, 
castle of, 105 
estates of, 49, 55 n. * 
Princes of, 

Anne Charles Frederic, 260 & 

n. ^, 261, 263, 264, 270 
Antoine Philippe, 298, 313 
at college, 274 
commands in Royalist 

army, 299 
distinguished at battles of 
Dol and Le Mans, 306, 

307 

distinguished in defence of 
Laval, 302, 303 

enters the army, 275 

expedition to the coast, 
305 & n., 306 

fondness for pleasure, 276 

imprisonment and escape, 
298 — 299 

imprisonment, trial and 
death, 308 — 311 

in family group, 274 & ot. 

joins the Royalists in the 
West, 298—308 

leaves the Vendean army, 
308 

organises the crossing of 
the Loire, 300, 302 

parts from his mistress. 
Lady Brighton, 298 

receives mysterious mes- 
sage from, 304 

visits England, 282, 283, 
298, 303, and escorts 
his sister-in-law to Rich- 
mond, 282, 283, 298 
Charles, 59, 78, 80, 81, 82, 

83M.1 



Francis. See La Tremoille 

Count of. 
Frederic Guillaume, 260 Sen.''-. 
Leopold, 312 

Louis Stanislas, Duke of 
Chatellerault, 260 n. ^ 
Princesses of, 

Felicie. See Durfort Duras- 
Henriette. See Argouges. 
Marie Jablonowski, 257 — 272 
death and testament de- 
scribed by Mme. du 
Deffand, 272 
liaison with Prince Charles 

Edward, 261 — 270 
marries Prince de Talmond, 

261 
visited by Horace Walpole, 
271 
Taranto or Tarente, 
Princes of, 257 n. 

claim the crown of Naples, 2, 

87, 198, 199, 288, 289 & n. 
Henry Charles, Due de La 
Tremoille, but better 
known as le Prince de 
Tarente, 174, 199, 203, 
215, 257, 258, 260 & n. 1, 
261, 277 n. 
arrest, imprisonment and 

release, 195, 196 
at the Court of the Nether- 
lands, 177 
becomes Due de La Tre- 
moille during his father's 
lifetime, 175, 195 
birth and upbringing, 175, 

176 
commands in the Thirty 

Years' War, 180, 181 
death at Thouars, 202 
engages in the Fronde, 184 

sqq. 
family controversies conse- 
quent on his return to 
the Catholic Church, 201, 



340 



INDEX 



Taranto or Tarente — continued. 
Princes of — continued. 

Henry Charles, Due de La 

Tremoille — continued. 
fights in the Battle of the 

Porte St. Antoine, i88— 

190 
first affair of honour, 179 
friendship with the Due 

d'Enghien, later " the 

Great Conde," 176, 184, 

187 
granted the presidency of 

the Breton estates, 198 
invested with the Order of 

the Garter by Charles II., 

192, 195, 260 
marries Emilie of Hesse 

Cassel, 183, 184 
Memoires, 175 & n., 179, 

182, 184, 189, 190 
negotiates with Cromwell, 

192, 193 
proposals of marriage, 181 
received by the King and 

Queen at Toulouse, 197 
residence in Holland, 192 — 

194 
resides at Thouars, 200 
resigns his command, 192 
returns to France, 194 
runs away from home, 176 
second affair of honour, 180 
shipwreck, 178 
summoned to France by 

his mother's death, 199 
visit to Hesse Cassel and 

third residence in Hol- 
land, 199 
visits London, 151, 177, 

178, 179 
title confirmed by Louis XIV. , 

198 
Emmanuelle de Chatillon, 
Princess of, 
emigrates to England, 283> 

298 



escapes from the September 

massacres, 282 
escapes from the Tuileries on 
the loth of August, 1792, 
280, 281 
her Souvenirs, 275, 279, 284 
in the Abbaye prison, 281 
life in Russia, and death at 

St. Petersburg, 291, 292 
lives at Richmond, 283, 284 
marries Charles Bretagne, 
Prince de Tarente, 275 & n., 
310 
meets her husband in Eng- 
land, 286, 287 
with Marie Antoinette during 
the Revolution, 279 — 281 
Taro, R., 65 

Teligny, Charles de, now., iii w. 2 
Tencin, the Abbe de, 255 
Themistocles, 236 
Thibert, family of, 18 
Thou, President de, 108 
Tiber, R., 219 
Tirechappe, Rue, 274 
Toledo, Bishop of. See Porto- 

carrero. Cardinal. 
Tongres, Battle of, 17 
Tonnerre, Countess of. See lie 

Bouchard, Catherine de 1'. 
Torcy, Marquis de, 223, 232, 250, 

254 
Toulouse, 197, 241 
Touraine, 38, 44, 56, 75 n. ^, 251 
Tournon, Rue de, 187 
Tours, 105 

Tourzel, Pauline de, 281 
Trieste, 296 
Trivulzio, 70, 71, 72, 78, 79 n. ^, 

80, 81 
Troyes, 

town of, 33, 69, 197 
Treaty of, 25 
Tuileries, palace, 133, 187, 279, 280 
Tunis, King of, 9 
Turenne, General, 153, 187,188, 190 
Turin, 233, 278, 279, 291 



INDEX 



341 



Tyburn, 171 
Tynemouth, 137 
Tyrol, 291 

Unguad, Elizabeth von, 209 
Ursins, La Princesse de. See 

Talleyrand, Marie Anne de. 
Utrecht, Treaty of, 199, 250, 255 

Valentinois, 

lands of, 69 

Louise d'Albret, Duchesse de. 
See Albret. 
Val6ry, 121 

ValliSre, la Duchesse de, 281, 292 
Valois, 

Francis, Duke of. See Fran- 
cis I., King of France. 

Marguerite de, divorced wife 
of Henry IV., 116, 214, 215 
Vannes, 37 

Vasse, Mme. de, 265, 269 
Vendome, 

Count of, 23 

Duke of, 249 
Venice, 

city of, 113, 126, 217, 291 

state of, 63, 70 
Verdun, 46 
Vere, 

Earl of Oxford, 130 n. 

Elizabeth, iin. 
Vernet, Camus de, 29 
Versailles, 222, 223, 238, 241, 242, 

243, 248, 252, 254, 273 
Vichy, 222 

Vienna, 210, 285, 288, 291, 294 
Vigevano, 71 
Vigo Bay, 242 n. 
Villafranca, 233 
Vincennes, 21, 22, 23, 120, 264 
Visconti, 

Galeas, Duke of Milan, 10 

Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, 61, 
63 n., 75 

Valentine, 61 & n. 



Vitre, 203, 206, 257 n. 2, 308, 

310 
Voltaire, 261 

Wagram, Battle of, 289 n.^ 

Walkinshaw, Miss, 270 

Walpole, Horace, 130 w., 270, 271, 

272 
Walsh, 

family of, 314 

Josephine Eugenie Valentine, 
Comtesse de Serrant and 
Duchesse de La Tremoille, 
X., 314. 315. 316 
Warrington, 136 
Waterloo, Battle of, 81, 314 
Wentworth, William, 166 
Weser, R., 210 
Westphalia, Treaty of, 199 
Whitehall, 178, 179 
Wigan, 140, 161 
William III., King of England, 
as King of England, 227, 231 
as Prince of Orange, 207, 211 
William the Silent, Prince of 
Orange, x., 95, 109, iii n. ^, 
112 n.^, 123, 130 n., 137 n., 
176 n. 3, 183 
Wilson, Andrew, 64 
Windsor, 262, 265, 266 
Witt, Mme. de, xi., 122 & n., 126 n. 
Woburn Khhey, 286 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 78 
Worcester, Battle of, 161 
Wotton, Sir Henry, 129 n. 
Wykerslooth, Baroness of, 314 n. 

Yarmouth, Countess of. See 

Maria Fagniani. 
Yolande of Arragon, Duchess of 

Anjou, 30, 37, 38 
York, 

Cardinal, 270 
city, 136, 137, 149 
James, Duke of. See James 
II., King of England. 

Zamariel, 126, 127 



BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. 



